Disgusted at the NHS

nicter

Lol ailuro. Didnt notice the date :rotfl:

getmore4less

nicter wrote: »

I am a band 5 nurse with 30 years experience . I and my fellow band 5 staff nurses are regularly "in charge" of the ward. Our band 6s and above work 9-5 Mon - Friday so have no choice.

I know hospitals are not all the same but why have you not all gone for the Senior staff if you are doing the job?

What do your senior staff do if they only work 9-5?

My OH ward now has nearly all shifts covered with senior staff nurses with nights covered by experienced staff nurses. If people don't get the B6 promotions they leave maybe that the problem at your place they know people won't leave to get the grade so they can keep you all on b5.

Even with the top of band 5 you can pull in over £30k without to much trouble and with some carefull shift planning £35k.

The trick to getting good pay was a band6 on permanent nights currently £44k and a £22k pension and a £66k lump sum if you have managed 40years service.

There is a lot of disparity in the NHS with some hospitals having good staffing levels with sensible skill mixes and others understaffed and poor low grade mix.

nicter

Getmorefor less......... We only have 1 band 6 per ward the rest of us are 5s. What do the band 6s do ??? Im still trying to work that one out lol. Not a lot on "the floor"
The only time Ive earnt over 30k was when I did permanent nights. I currently do nights and days inc weekends and am top band 5 but dont reach 30k. We are a small unit (elderly care)which is part of a large trust and rarely have enough staff for the amount of patients we have but I would like to think we have never compromised patient care

Kaz2904

getmore4less wrote: »

I know hospitals are not all the same but why have you not all gone for the Senior staff if you are doing the job?
If people don't get the B6 promotions they leave maybe that the problem at your place they know people won't leave to get the grade so they can keep you all on b5.

There has to be a band 6 available before people will aply for one. Most hospitals in my area now have pulled all job advertising. There are no new jobs going. No bank staff are getting shifts and no agency are being used. This means that the staff on duty are seriously stretched.
Our trust tend not to roster band 6's on nights because they are too expensive.
You say that it is easy to earn £35k a year with careful shift planning at top band 5. I wouldn't say careful shift planning would make you want to work a long shift every Sunday and nights for every other shift (probably the highest pay). That would be quite detrimental to any sort of social life.
Band 6's tend to do less weekends too so the band 5 ends up doing 3-4 weekends per month. That's pretty pants and when you go an entire summer without having a whole weekend off it is annoying. You are left unable to plan anything.
It may look like we get a lot of holiday but that does include the 8 bank holidays that everyone else gets as standard. Knock that off and it's not much more than elsewhere.

Someone asked (in answer to one of my previous posts) how old I was (28 was the guess). I was 31 then. I worked in care work before and during my training to get experience and earn enough money to pay my way through uni. Most nurses I work with have actually trained later in life after their children are at school or even left home.

I hope OPs Mum made a good recovery and I hope that the NHS will improve over time. Sadly, I don't believe it will. Staff are being cut left right and centre. Only this morning there were 3 staff off sick from the ward next to me. One of our nurses phoned in sick too. Not good for the nurse she left as there are only 2 of us on duty for each shift. (I work in a high care area with 5 very sick patients). The other night I was on duty with a nurse who couldn't give IV drugs. I spent the night giving 30 IV drugs and 4 blood transfusions :eek:- I didn't get much paperwork done!

Despite all the politics and aggro, I love my job. It's a pleasure to go to work and see all of my lovely colleagues who are like a family to me. I meet some wonderful people and hear some really touching stories. The love I see from families just blows me away sometimes.
On that note, I'd better get off the 'puter, get my uniform on and go back to work. Night all x

alias123

I have to agree with what the op has said regarding Pinderfields. No matter whether they build a shiny new hospital the management is the same old, and crap, and they'll only run the new one into the ground. With regards Pontefract I can only go on the snippets in the press which aren't too kind. But I totally disagree with the comments regarding Dewsbury, Its a good, decent hospital, shame all the money is being used to prop up the other two Mid Yorkshire pits.

carolan78

eco wrote: »

My mum received care for Cancer from Cookridge and Jimmy's and both were good, this was a few years back, so I did the rounds with her on appointments, biopsy's she had done at Dewsbury. I met loads of Cancer patients with my mum and there resilience and hope is humbling.

Pinderfields is part of a trust and at the moment they are getting rid of staff, from all 3 hospitals, nurses are been stretched by managers on far more money, the nurse are put on 12/13 hour shifts on the wards and there isn't enough staff to look after patients effectivly. They are also having to apply for there job and been told there isn't a position at there hosdpital and been told there is a job at one of the other hospitals, putting X amount of time on there days trying to travel there. It doesn't excuse the treatment your mum received and i would be hopping mad, all those patients deserved better but very unlikely to get it.

Sadly Cookridge is no longer there but I know they did a fantastic job.

My worst ever experiance was giving birth to DD1 at the Friarage hospital in Northallerton, I was the only one having a natural birth that night and they dumped me in a room with no gas and air, when I asked for pain relief (by this time I had been having contractions for over 20 hours just not close enough to go in) I got paracetamol. I eventually requested the epidural to be told the anethatist had gone home because he is only part time.

I then went for a bath and asked the midwife where my husband was (I was going to tell him to phone his parents and grab a coffee while I was in the bath) and the midwife snapped to the leave the poor bloke alone men need their sleep! Errrr hello pregnant lady in labour had no sleep for over 24 hours...and gave up her bed so hubby could grab a few hours!

I finally got the epidural 8 hours later (about 7am) and was told baby wouldn't be here until about 7pm that evening. My um walked past the end of the bed at about 2:30pm and saw the babies head she ran for the idwife who told her not to be stupid. In comes midwife finally and panics like mad, the other midwife had gone on a break so she had to get the trainee to help her. She couldn't find any delivery packs, so she just grabbed some latex gloves and told me to sart pusing (I could feel the contractions slighlty). I pushed and my DD came out face down arm first, not sure what happened next but my DH and Mum said the midwife panicked and just yanked her out by her arm. Thankfully my DD was fine but I was torn to shreads inside out

My second labour in Jimmy's was far better but they did give me pethadine a little late so DS's heart rate was irratic so we had loads of people in the room and machines just incase. I needed vantuse (sp?) to help get him out but once out and warmed up by Mummy cuddles he was fine. Even with the scare they delt with it very well and wasn't their fault because they didn't expect me to dialate so quickly (none of us did after the very slow dialation with DD). The aftercare was very good but once on the ward to await discharge the nurse there could have done with a bit of training on her bedside manor concidering she is dealing with hormonal women :rotfl:

Errata

Sadly Cookridge is no longer there but I know they did a fantastic job.

Jimmy's specialist cancer services are now provided in the new Bexley Wing at Jimmy's. It's the regional cancer centre and has an international reputation. My experience has been that the medical and nursing staff there work to a very different ethos than that found in a district general hospital.

Imp

I've only read up to page 3

My wife has had an operation in a private hospital, and was admitted to an NHS hospital at the start of her pregnancy.

In both cases, the doctors were excellent and I couldn't fault them. The difference in the nursing care was stark. Thing I noticed in the private hospital was that the nurses were busy. They had lots to do but they did it in an attentive and caring fashion. Everything seemed well organised.

When my wife went to the NHS hospital, I could almost feel the dirt clinging to me. I washed my hands on the way out rather than the way in. My wife was de-hydrated an on a drip to re-hydrate her. It was too much trouble for the nurses at the nursing station to get her a glass of water. She was on a drip, but was told to get out of bed and collect her meals. The drip was not on a trolley (even though they said they would get one) so she had to wander around the ward carring her drip bag to get her meals. The second day she was there, they forgot about her and left the drip empty. They never showed her how to call the nurse or to turn on or off lights, so at about 2 in the morning someone wandered past and saw her light on and my wife not able to sleep, so they turned the light off.

My impression of the NHS nurses was that there was a culture of laziness. I'm sure we have all been in situations were there is lots to do, but we can't get motivated. It was as if the whole nursing team had fallen into this trap of procrastination and there was no management to pull them out of it. I did look at private pregnancies, but I can't afford it. Maybe if I wasn,t paying 11% of my wages in national insurance I would be able to afford it,

Mrs_Ryan

I had treatment in Pontefract after my accident a few weeks ago, and I must say I cant really complain - despite the fact it was a Saturday afternoon I was treated fairly quickly, and the nurses and doctors I saw were efficient and friendly and the place seemed clean. Working in a hospital as I do Im probably more critical than most but couldnt really pick fault.

surreysaver

ailuro2 wrote: »

Am I missing something here.... or is this a year old thread that has been resurrected out of the blue... would it not make sense to start a new one, save people reading 7 pages of old posts??:)

But the issues are just as valid..