District nurse experience

[MrsWhirling]

Hi All, my mum was diagnosed with Primary Liver Cancer & underwent a Liver resection to remove the affected part of the Liver.

Her surgical wound is huge& due to previous surgery a part of it was left open. This became infected & since a district nurse is visiting her to clean& dress the wound.

It's never the same person but so far they have all been rude, very scruffy and my mine gripe turning up without any equipment. Yesterday one used plasters from our first aid box, my mums sewing scissors& water from the kettle. Surely this can't be right.

Any experience, advice would be grately appreciated. Thank you.

I think it is like any sector of people, good, bad, scruffy ... ! maybe after today they will be sweeter tempered, they have probably had staffing problems over Christmas! I have met a few twatty ones in my time but have also met some absolute diamonds. Hope your Mums wou d heals soon

No it's not acceptable . It's unprofessional and warrants complaint .

'I think it is like any sector of people, good, bad, scruffy '

Health care professionals need to maintain a certain level of politeness and organisitation. Wound care needs to be carried out to a high standard of hygiene.

If you think this is not happening, then you need to write down everything that happens and complain.

I work in a GP practice and this doesn't sound like our district nurses that go out. I'm sure the only think they might ask for would be warm water if needed, i do agree that you may not get the same nurse every time . But you should ring and complain about the other matters

I had a wound treated by district nurse they wore uniform, were professional and had everything they needed. Your experience is awful!

I wouldn't think this is acceptable either. We have visits from our children's community nursing team and they always bring with them what they are going to need and always seem to have basic stuff in their car too. (gloves, sample pots, swabs etc) even if the dressings you needed are on prescription from your GP they should surely have something better then plasters in their kit and most definitely scissors.

Thank you all. I don't want to kick up a fuss but at the same time it is really stressing us out.

My parents have had a lot of DN visits over the last couple of years - some have been great and some have been downright rude. But apart from dressings and catheters, they've always had all that they needed to do the task they had been booked for by the GP.

Oh dear! That doesn't sound good does it? I spent some time with our district nurses not long ago and it's not a job I would like to do, much happier as a practice nurse. The amount of patients they are expected to see is ridiculous and so I can see why you might not have the same nurse every time. However that does not excuse a scruffy appearance, lack of equipment and most of all rudeness!! I am very sorry you are experiencing this OP. You could try and call your community nurse office and have a chat with the senior nurse?

Are they definitely qualified nurses, or could they be health care assistants? I know that my local dn service use hcas for some procedures. Wrt equipment, again going off what my local service does, the nurse should definitely have things like scissors, but would probably not have access to many dressings. This is because the dn service does not purchase a large amount of dressings etc, only a few to be used if the patient has not been able to pick up their own stuff prescribed by the gp. All to do with separate budgets you see.
And no excuse whatsoever for scruffiness or rudeness. You should complain, and from experience, the ones who are able to shout loudest are likely to get the best attention, sadly.

I had District Nurses everyday for six months. They brought the dressing packs with them, but everything else I had to get on prescription from the GP, dressings, saline etc. They didn't have the budget to provide that for patients.

There should be a number of the notes to contact the DN team, you could ring and ask to speak to the team leader.

MY FIL and MIL had district nurses coming round when they were terminally ill from cancer. They were a very good team, much better than our experince of Macmillan who did nothing.

They gave MIL her medication and got her to bed for the last couple of weeks. They helped get equipment, although even with their help, we never did manage to get the proper bed for MIL, to go with the mattresses that we did get, before she died. Some things are just impossible

I don't think your experience was a good one at all. Hopefully, they were not the usual people and it will improve as things get back to normal.

I would ring the team leader as southwest1 suggests and see what should be happening and what you should be supplying (and how). It seems awfully complicated, getting helped! Need a degree for it.