General Chat

The problem in our area seems to be lack of backup services (laboratories, x-ray and so on). So A & E waits for x-rays, inpatients wait for scans and lab results. Night times there is one x-ray technician on, so if a ward needs a portable machine taken up because a patient can't be brought down, A & E patients queue for maybe an hour to be x-rayed and A & E waiting times can be seven hours. Patients can't be discharged because pharmacy can't get round to dispensing drugs to take home; and so on, and so on! A couple of years ago I was taken in with a suspected heart attack (actually indigestion, which is what I told them all along). It was decided to do a 24 hour recording but I sat in a bed for three days waiting for a portable machine to become available. So for the lack of a machine costing perhaps £100 I tied up a bed for half a week at a cost of £500. And the machine would be re-usable for years! Recently went to the doctors (six weeks or so ago) with recurrent nose bleeds. Just got the notification of appointment through: contact them in March. This means that I could be spending up to five months with nose bleeds two or three times a week before even seeing a consultant (fortunately they have ceased for the time being). The time trickery is that I am not on a waiting list as the consultant's appointment will not be made until March, so the statistics look good. Fact is that I will have seen my GP in November, but get treated around next June, maybe. Overall I am not impressed!

thanks for your comments folks. i agree there are too many chiefs and not enough indians, the directives i get from management actually prevent me from giving patient care, i am supposed to document every conversation i have with patients/relatives, and everything i do for the patient. as for the cleanliness, would you clean loos for minimum wage when you can earn more working in Tesco??? whenever we are short of cleaners/proters/doctorss, it is the nurses who are expected to fill the gap and with only 4 nurses to care for 27 acutly ill patients, it is no wonder things get missed. nurses often hand over to the next shift at the nurses station rather than the office, this is due to complaints that we are not always visible on the wards, so please bear that in mind if we appear to be 'chatting' add to that the abuse/complaints we get from patients and relatives about the cleanliness/food/TV not working/delay in scans,xrays etc. (most of which we have no control over) is it any wonder that the NHS has a recruitment/retainment problem? I for 1 am considering leaving the profession, not because of the patients, but because of a systen which will not allow me to do the job i trained and studied hard to do, and which could end me up in court though noi fault of my own. at the end of the day we are a free health care service not a 5* hotel moan over bev

hi shelli, mayday,is a teaching hospital,and is very good. st georges tooting,is another excellent hospital. bryan.

Having been both a patient and behind the scenes, a generalisation is that the admin. is sloppy and top-heavy but the medical care it topclass. The cleaners need more training and rigorous supervision, perhaps a modicum of intelligence and education. When I was in intensive care and wired up to an ecg machine, my son oberved that my heart rate went up whenever a good looking (female) nurse went by. Having had several rides (as a patient) in ambulances, I realise where the phrase "dead on arrival" originated. The teams are marvellous but the vehicles are like refridgerated flat-bed trucks. Len

Hi Bev, I'm sure you are a very conscientious nurse but not all nurses are. I have heard nurses chatting about an upcoming wedding at the nurses' station when an old lady was pressing the buzzer for a bedpan. Then one of them shouted at her when she wet the bed because she couldn't wait for them to finish their conversation. The day shift ignored elderly patients on a regular basis. I used to ring my bell for the old lady next to me so someone would come. Nurses and doctors aren't responsible for cleaning the wards but some are not very careful about washing their hands between patients - that's how my relative got MRSA. They wouldn't allow him out of bed so he didn't get it anywhere else. As I said some of the nurses who have treated our family have been excellent but some really shouldn't be in the job. Gwynne

Get rid of the "Administrators" and bring back the Matron.

Gwynne i agree with you, there are a few bad apples, as i think someone already said there are in every organisation, and i don't condone or excuse them for one minute, but moral is so low amongst medical & nursing staff at the mo, they are leaving in droves. my gripe is that it is the system that isn't working (on the whole) but it is the nurses and doctors that appear to take the flak, so i was interested in seeing if that was the feeling in general on herre. by no means a scientific or methodology correct survey, but still interesting to get views Bev

grampa we have Matrons they go to meetings, usually about bed crisis and staff shortages. not seen one clean the loo when the cleaner was off sick yet Bev

Hiya Bev, I don't really have much personal experience of dealing with the NHS as such. My brother was in hospital last week, having a cyst removed and had complications, but he was warned of this beforehand as it was the second time he'd had one removed in this place. Regardless of this, I think all Nurses and NHS workers should be on at least triple the pay, as someone said earlier, its the bigwigs getting all the money and all you lot (not meant in any way rudely) who are putting the work in, and the hours and you never seem to get any appreciation for it. Sack the top lot and get some real people in there!!! Love Sarah x

I don't think that this is a new problem - stretching nurses to the limits of their resources and capabilities. My daughter had her tonsils out 25 years ago and I visited as she was coming around from the anaestetic. There was ONE very young nurse trying to cope with a ward of around 12-14 children all at various stages of coming round. I found myself holding sick bowls and wiping faces after she asked for some help from ME! I didn't MIND but it shouldn't have happened! I have had some wonderful treatment myself and I personally can't fault the care I've had. A dedicated nurse is to be much admired and be thankful for - they do a marvellous job. Perhaps those that appear not to be so dedicated are, as Bev has mentioned, demoralised. It must be hard when so overworked to keep focussed. It would be interesting to see how many of these 'angels' suffer with stress. BUT No excuse whatsover for leaving my mother-in-law without knickers and sat on an incontinence pad on her chair - when she was neither incontinent nor incapable of ringing for a bedpan. No logical reason for leaving a meal on the over bed table for an old lady who was totally incapable of holding a knife and fork and then taking it away again when she didn't eat it! No explanation required for why my nieces partner contracted MRSA and they almost had to amputate his leg. The ward was filthy! And WHY did my daughter STILL have the same bloody bed sheets on that she had in the recovery room following her caesarian when she was in the ward receiving visitors? Beats me! I will plead with Bev not to give up - we all need quality nurses to stay and help rebuild the shambles that has become the NHS - without them on the front line - we are stuffed! We need to make sure that nursing care is all that they have responsibilty for - I think we should ALL write to our MP's, Tony 'The NHS is working' Blair or anyone who might be able to get the balance restored. Magsx

The experience I have had of the health Service over the last few months of my mother's life was amazing.I have never come across such dedicated people.They were saints.Every nurse without fail in three different wards and three different hospitals were so kind to my Mum. The only fault I found was at Consultant level.I found the Consultant geriatritian for DCH and Weymouth an arrogant man with a patronising attitude. I had a meeting with him where his patronising manner was offensive until I produced my file and said 'Who is taking notes of this meeting,you or I' and sat down and opened my file ready. You do not patronise an ex-Head. HE WAS MORE CAREFUL FROM THEN ON. At all other times when I have need to used D-Doc or our Intermediate Care fascility again it has been excellent.

I've read all these replies with great interest. I was training to be a nurse at Barts in the late 70's. All I can say is there were fewer of us with more patients but on the old style long 'Nightingale' wards we could see all the patients at once. All our handovers were on the ward. Even then the 'foreign' cleaners would refuse to clean around any patient area they considered contaminated so we cleaned as well; on Sundays we scrubbed all the equipment as well. I've had 3 children and they've been in and out of hospitals with various things and most people were lovely, however lots of them were not what you might call professional in their approach and I think this is to do with the times we live in - most students would not put up with the style of training we had to. And cleanliness definitely varies from hospital to hospital. Better ward management could sort most of it out. Off my soapbox now!!!

Hmmm, not sure whether it was a good or bad thing to read the thread. I've applied for the Diploma in Nursing and have got as far as the selection day in February 2005. It was a big decision, as i'm in my 30's and male, and already in a well paid job, but just decided I needed to do something more fulfilling. Well, I guess it's right to go in with both eyes open, so interesting to see the comments. Still, i'm not put off yet, so i'm either a sandwich short of a picnic or a glutton for punishment.

Hello Helen in kent agree with you the old way of nursing to me was the best, infection was unheard of cleaners knew how to clean, each day they cleaned a diffrent part of the ward! matrons ????thats a diffrent story one trouble to day is paper work, to much of it?helenx

when my mum was in hospital recently in southampton they moved her 3 times so the nurses didnt have to go to too many rooms! not so good when you're worried about cancer! i have to say the nurses were very friendly and good to mum, just that she didnt need messing about after major surgery.

I have spent more than 6 months in hospital in past 10 years. The worst being 3 months folloing a life threatening motorcycle accident, which included 4 weeks on life support. In every event, I have found the staff to be curteous and caring, making every effort to ensure my well being. I salute you all, working directly with patients. The biggest GRIPE I have is with the food. Having spent so much time in different Hospitals, I have found the food to be very dissapointing. The purpose of food is to promote well being and recovery. The food on offer does not help at all. At one stage I ticked the sheet for fish and chips and received just 8 strips of fried potato and a very dry piece of fish. I then notice that many Hospitals offer a much better choice of Asian type foods. I have nothing against that and in no way am I making a racist comment, however, this is the UK and I would expect to receive quality english foods. I also apreciate that only a small amount of money is allocated to food per day if I remeber correctly around £2. When able to leave my bed, I would only eat in the staff restaurant. It would be far better to allow people to contribute and order the the far superior, subsidised food, found in the staff restaurant, than to suffer the appauling food that is on offer.

I have read all the threads on this board with great interest. Along with everyone else I have had both extremely good and extremely bad experiences of the NHS. I do firmly believe though that once the age of 70 is reached then to the majority of hospital staff you are nothing but a nuisance. I just wonder though whether this is more due to changing attitudes to a job rather than the vocation that it used to be. The older people on this site I am sure will agree that in times gone by you did your job whatever it might be to the best of your ability. Nowadays it is a case of I will do just enough to get by. I am not saying that everyone is like this but it seems to me to be quite rare to find a 20 – 30 year old prepared to go that extra mile. I’m not sure whether this is as a result of low morale as it seems that it doesn’t matter how good you are at your job there is still no guarantee that it will be for life and although a job within the NHS would probably be for life people these days just do not seem to be as conscientious as they once were. I think this applies in every walk of life. To all those who spend their time keeping us safe and well I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Marion

Oh Marion! If only I had been able to get that down on paper! - I wholeheartedly agree! Not, as you say, in nursing particularly, but everywhere!. This 'that'll do' and 'So?' attitude drives me MAD! Magsx

Definately no gripes with Nursing Staff but the Higher Management really sucks, most of the Admin dept have no medical training so do not understand the problems people have, to them ( most of them anyway) its just an office job and patients are a PIA. In my Town,Gosport in Hampshire we've have a fantastic hospital run by the Navy for many years(1744) theyve never had any MRSA there to my knowledge compared with the NHS Hospital whon seem to breed it, and not many years ago a set of brand new operating theatres were built, now the whole lot is being closed and patients having to travel to Portsmouth to be seen. The local NHS Trust seems determined to close a perfectly good Hospital regardless of what it cost in money or lives, theres a lot of very p.....d off patients round here. A very angry Len from Gosport

having worked for a facilites division of the NHS I was appalled at the waste of funds, but having been a recent admission, they were fantastic.... The plastic surgeons have done a superb job and although scarred for life it's so so tidy it's untrue.... no-one notices and it's only been 4 weeks!! My only bad experience in there was listening to how some doctors spoke to the staff.... it was appalling, they deserve respect too!!