Patients/ families all seem very stressed!

[ElTingo]

Just an observation in the last year or so that ( in paediatrics) I am finding many families are coming into our services (acute speciailst medical care) already very stressed and defensive and almost angry towards HCPs, which is a change from previous ( my almost 20y of experience). These are often children who have been fit and well before/ no long waits and we are used to seeing trauma response and relationships being strained at the end of long hospital stays/ of errors occur, but seeing this at the very start is more unusual.

I'm interested to know if others are experiencing similar.

A few things I think are feeding into this:

State of NHS services generally - underfunded
Post pandemic - society has changed
Cost of living - financial stress
Social media - lots of comparison and expectations/ polarised opinions

It's like many of us have raised the baseline stress we are under and it doesn't take much to raise it to crisis point.

Arthere e any reasons others feel are contributing to this?

Totally , I work in A&E . Honestly it’s dire and it feels like you are going to a court case every day.
its just anger and accusations and blaming . It’s always my fault , we are shit at everything.
plus at night we have no doctors ? Only 5 but one is in charge , one is in resus , one with the kids. It leaves 2 or 3 very junior to see everyone else . So we end up, every night from 20 until
8 am , with a 8-9-10-12 hour wait to be seen.
all you do , in triage , and if you are in the waiting room , it’s getting shouted at .
i am finding it extremely hard because , no matter how much you prepare yourself, it’s not nice to be shouted at all the time. And there is nothing I can do , we are packed full beyond measure .
we have security patrolling the department, we asked for a metal detector..soo much abuse , verbal and physical as well . it’s not fun at all .
loads of mental health presentation too…like I have been a nurse for 12 years , I do not recognise the place anymore . It’s shockingly bad . At least on the front line .