Nurses speak to me like crap

[alicewithnohumps]

I recently started a new job as a HCA and I find that a lot of the nurses are quite rude and really short with me....it's beginning to get me down now. One nurse today is usually quite chatty with everyone but today has given me very one word answers then spun her chair around and continued her day. Maybe I'm just being over sensitive but has anyone else had this?

[BlueCookieMonster]

Gosh, just move wards! They sound horrendous.
I work in maternity, we’d be blinking screwed without our lovely HCA’s. Worth their weight in gold!

[abithecroc]

Yes going to hopefully move ASAP. Because I don't know what kind of response I will get from my manager and the couple of nurses who have been spoken to

[EBearhug]

Why are you dreading going back? It sounds like things are now being dealt with. Are you going to take up the offer of a different ward?

[abithecroc]

Update....
I raised all my concerns with the matron the other day. One of the HCAs was unwell and she was meant to be doing the previous night so when I went in to start my shift, we generally all have a coffee whilst night staff do handover so I walked up to the nurses station with my coffee (as we all do every morning) and one of the night staff said "I would make the most of that coffee there will be no sitting today you've got the night jobs to do before you do anything" so I just stood up and began my cleaning and all the jobs that needed doing at that moment I just wanted to walk out.

The matron was lovely and offered me a move to a different ward, some admin if I fancy and sorting out the fact that I'm doing more than I should in regards to hours. I brought up 2 particular nurses who haven't been very nice and she is going to speak to them. I am now dreading going to work on Tuesday

[CAMPRiest]

@Miljea
Sounds as if you’re one of those nurses who believe you are better than everyone else.
You probably speak to your team like crap and they all hate you behind your back.
She was never implying that they were jealous of her pay grade. She was talking in terms of how good this lady seems to be at her job, she sounds great with patients. The nurse she works with is probably a stone faced wench like you and her patients don’t like her

[cloudydaysinnovember]

that sounds horrible.

From what you say the other HCAs on different wards are experiencing it sounds like the culture of your ward is to blame rather than the whole environment you work in.

I have been a bank HCA in a large hospital for about a year and a half and while it is a tough job and some staff are not particularly helpful, I have not come across what you are describing.

Generally 95% of the nurses I work with are amazing and really lovely to and appreciative of the HCAs. Generally the HCAs are nice to each other and help each other out too, but obviously people being people, not all the time!!

If you enjoy the job itself and it works for you then I suggest you move department and see how you get on elsewhere.

[BarbaraFromOopNorth]

You don't sound over sensitive. You're working hard and want to be part of the team but it sounds like you are being alienated. Vote with your feet. Life is short. Don't put up with crap.

[alicewithnohumps]

One girl (HCA) got moved onto our ward and then she left to move to another ward after 4 weeks and now I see why. I honestly just thought maybe I am being over sensitive but actually typing all the issues on here I generally don't think it's me

[BarbaraFromOopNorth]

Also, if you are contracted for three 12 hour days then you don't have to do more. Don't say yes to any extra hours whilst in this job. Put yourself first.

[BarbaraFromOopNorth]

Op, there are so many HCA jobs out there that it really isn't worth putting up with crap.

Hand in your notice and find something else. They clearly don't value you. Let them cope without an HCA as it's clearly so easy.

[alicewithnohumps]

Every job I have been in I have never experienced this and they have all been majority female staff but everyone was treated equally. Iv never felt more invisible and I just can't believe the lack of manners and basic people skills. Some nurses do make comments about the patients when at the nurses station then put on a friendly face when they are bed side. The other day the ward was so busy and I literally did not stop from 7:30-2:30 and if I'm honest all I wanted was just a couple of minutes to sit down and have a drink and the look I got when I went to the nurses station was horrid so I chose to go to the toilet just to sit down. I don't want to tarnish all nurses with the same brush because at least 3 of them are so nice. I feel I have made a huge mistake leaving my last job. I am contracted to 3 long days (12 hour shifts) and since I have been there I haven't had a weekend off and I am doing 5 long days instead of 3. A 60 hour week with a 2 year old at home I am already at rock bottom and I have only been there 2 months.

[geordiejock]

Retired HCA here, some wards are toxic, especially where staff have been there a long time and form little clique's. Some qualified will look down on you because they earn 19 quid an hour and you earn half that, but that's their problem, not yours. Bollocks to them! It's often those who think a good shift is never leaving then nurse station and spending a shift on eBay and discussing last night's tv who are the worst.

[adagio]

This thread is so depressing to read. I am lucky, I have never been in hospital (apart from a few hours for birthing 2 kids - both times discharged straight from delivery), and I work in finance - so have zero experience of any of this. Reading this I hope I never have to go to hospital! Why do people choose to go into nursing if they lack compassion and don’t want to help people? Colleagues (HCA), patients, Porters, cleaners - all are needed to keep everything running smoothly and should be treated with care and respect. Are these nurses equally rude to the patients or do they save it for the perceived lesser grade staff?

One teacher in my daughters school apparently complained that a student in placement shouldn’t be allowed in the staff room as she is not staff. (I know the student in question so I’m fairly sure this is true). Perhaps this unpleasant hierarchical approach is a government employee thing?

In all the offices I’ve worked in over the last 20+ years - and I started at the bottom - we have all treated each other as adults regardless of grade.

[BarbaraFromOopNorth]

I think part of the problem is that nursing is a degree subject now and probably a few of those nurses have gone off to university, qualified and never actually worked as an HCA.

[BarbaraFromOopNorth]

It's rubbish when you're in a job and everyone is delegating loads of little jobs to the extent that you're probably under a lot more pressure than them!

I would definitely look at going on the bank. That way you can move around until you find a ward you like and hopefully they'll take you on permanently.

[Pomley]

OP please do say something, it would be a shame for you to leave as it sounds like you are very good at the job. When I was in I needed my catheter changing and my blood soaked sheets changing, the nurse said to me 'not my job'. I couldn't deal with either as i was also on IV fluids and couldn't move far, and by the time the HCA came along my catheter was nearly overflowing, which is obviously dangerous. She was incredible though, so caring and sorted me out, made me much more comfortable and reported my blood loss as it should have been something the nurse was interested in; even if it was beneath her to change them.

[alicewithnohumps]

I get that some stuff is "my job" but if I was sat on my ass or just stood chatting then fair enough I'd expect them to be annoyed but I'm clearly busy and they just leave beds and sit at the station chatting and it just rubs me up the wrong way. I'm by no means work shy but I physically can't get everything done. One of the student nurses actually got stuck in the other day doing beds and making brews and I was so appreciative of her. I got in trouble last week because one of the nurses asked me to clear away the urine samples that were left on the side in the sluice so I did then a doctor shouted at me because he needed one of the samples to send it off. I felt like bursting into tears

[Mamabear1988]

I hear you with the beds. They would be sitting having a drink leaving all beds to me when they discharged because that was my job, plus the other things I had to do! They would actually say oh I'm not doing that bed as theres a hca.

[Mamabear1988]

I was a HCA for 5 years (well 2 were maternity leave). It was awful! I have never worked with such nasty, bitchy, arrogant people. I was depressed by the time I left. You could try another ward to see if it's better? I'd always get the shitty times lunch break (if i was lucky), not invited to things often, no one to talk to, no help with beds. There was me with about 6 nurses so all I'd get was can you do this, do that, go here, go there from all 6 at a time! I am such a hard worker and definitely not lazy but this pushed me. Often I would walk back and hear them bitching about me. Even the cleaner heard them and told them to stop being arseholes but they didn't. Shame as I loved my job but couldn't take it anymore.

[BryanAdamsLeftAnkle]

You need to move wards. I'm a newly qualified nurse and working as an HCA for now. There are lots of wards where you can work and feel welcomed.

It sounds to me like they don't want you at the nurse station. They are very rude.

The wards I work on generally have 3 to 4 HCA staff and 4 nurses. I tend to work on wards where 1 to 1 supervision for patients is required.

Go on the bank and then you can choose where you go and can refuse to go back to places that are horrible..

[alicewithnohumps]

So a little update, yesterday I went to a HCA induction training course and it gave me opportunity to speak to lots of other HCAs. Non of them are doing half the stuff I am doing. They all have at least 2 other HCAs on duty with them, I'm on my own every shift. They looked absolutely gob smacked when I was explaining my daily duties to them. I'm going to have to say something now.

[Pomley]

Sorry to hear this OP, if the nurses you work with are anything like the ones who 'looked after' me in hospital, then this doesn't surprise me at all, nasty. It sounds like you're doing a great job and it would be a shame of the hospital lost you as a member of staff, can you try and transfer to another ward?

[BarbaraFromOopNorth]

You should be having supervision where you can raise this. Perhaps say you are doing your best but might be missing something. You find the nurses way of communicating unusual and not particularly welcoming (i.e. dismissive and rude).

I did just think of another HCA who transferred to admin purely because of understaffing and feeling really lonely/not made to feel welcome.

Don't suck it up. Try to tackle it. If it doesn't improve then see if you can move elsewhere. Our trust urges people not to leave and speak to the recruitment team to see if they can relocate.

[BooseysMom]

That sounds really unfair. It makes me think there's no way i'm re-training as HCA if that's what they get you doing! Our HCA doesn't get involved in cleaning, just tidying the stock room and ordering supplies. She goes out to see patients mostly. Sorry you are putting up with this treatment. Maybe you could raise the matter with one of the lovely sisters. Hope things start improving for you.

[alicewithnohumps]

It's not so much what they say it's more the tone, never a please or Thankyou. There's 2 ladies I really like and they are sisters and both so lovely I just pray I'm on a shift with them soon. Manners go a long way and it's just ignorant