Disgusted at the NHS

Errata

KittyKate wrote: »

Thanks! I have started a petition on the no10 site and will post it on here once it is approved & hopefully with enough interest the Yorkshire Evening Post might get involved. It would be the proudest day of my life if they pulled the practice of mixed sex attendance wards.

Good for you :T

Anyone who has worked, or works, in healthcare and is familiar with this hospital knows how dreadful it is compared to other hospitals. It's been grim for a great many years but the will to improve it seems to be non-existant.
Mixed sex attendance wards are, I think, complicit with Dept of Health regs. Mixed sex 'ordinary' wards are not complicit, and I understand some of those still exist at Pinders.

bumpoowee

danielanthony wrote: »

My missus is a nurse and works long 13 hour days, often with no breaks due to how busy they are.

Plus she has two degree's and gets paid less than most graduates for mopping up p*ss, cleaning people and putting up with relatives who have no idea about the stress the staff are under.

Some hospitals might be run badly, but not all are. Don't forget that nurses get paid a pittance for how qualified they are and for what they have to do as part of their jobs. I certainly wouldn't want to do it.

Cleaners regularly mop up !!!! for NMW. Just because a job is unpleasant doesn't mean it warrants a high wage. Nurses are certainly not low paid the job adverts I've looked at are generally £30k+ and I believe starting rate is around £20k, which is a very good wage to start on, for what is essentially a semi-skilled job at best. Many graduates work in jobs that require detailed technical knowledge and constant training whereas nursing is often just basic tasks like cleaning and doesn't change much over time.

No doubt I've opened myself up to abuse here for daring question NHS workers, but I do get tired of people going on about how nurses/teachers etc get a raw deal when if you look at the facts they really don't. What I would say is that in my own experience recently I found the midwives very good during my partners labour but their advice at all other times was crap and health visitors who are very well paid are without exception a complete waste of public money giving terrible advice with a healthy dose of a consdescending attitude mixed in.

NoahsPennilessMummy

I don`t know where you get the idea nursing is a semi skilled job! You would be surprised at what we have to learn and do during our degrees and training. We have also taken on a lot of the doctors roles. I do not think any nurse would think they were in a semi skilled job:mad:
That said I am disgusted to hear how the OP`s mother was treated and she should certainly be making a complaint to the CE of the hospital trust.
Despite being a nurse for 20 years i am leaving asap as I can no longer tolerate the way the NHS is run......staff and patients are not people anymore we are all numbers and it is run as a business which is just not possible in my opinion when you are dealing with people at very worried and emotional points of their lives. I now feel I can not do my job to the level I wish and come home feeling that I have failed my patients through no fault of my own. i must say also that the people coming into the job now treat patients very differently to the way I was trained to do, there seems to be little respect anymore.
There is also a ridiculous amount of paper work to do these days and constant meetings about funding and budgets and other such carp which is not why I went into the job.

NoahsPennilessMummy

The more I read the first post the more I am annoyed at how those patients and relatives were treated:mad: I can`t understand why they sent relatives home!:eek:
I look after patients coming in with cancer having tests to see if they can have treatment or not. it is obviously an extremely stressful day for them and in some cases they are going to get bad news that day....it is a life changing day for them all. They usually bring relatives with them and to be honest I look after the relatives as well as the patients, making them drinks, giving them a shoulder to cry on....it is all my job after all.
The NHS has gone downhill for sure but I honestly think nurses are not trained in the same way either. As I said earlier there is no respect....eg I would never approach an older patient and call them by first name, I always call them mr or mrs so and so and then if they invite me to call them by their first name fair enough but would never call them by their first names on approach to them.
I also feel it is unprofessional to stand at the nurses station discussing your latest drunken night out in full earshot of patients and relatives but others do not see this view.....

feedumall

my daughter was left in a store room as the ambulance to transfer her to another hospital after back surgery ,didnt turn up and they had given her bed to some one else,she was stuck there for three hours :eek:and could not move luckily a nurse heard her shouting for help:mad::mad:.oh and they left a needle in her hand and local hospital had to take it out. she complained and when she went back for check up the cosultant had two pen pushers with him and they offered her tea/water and a comfy chair:rolleyes:

tandraig

I still think - its because there are no SENS or auxiliarys that standards have dropped.. ok - have got that some wards the nurses actually do some nursing (wash patients feed them etc) but its by no means the norm. am sorry but - I spent at least two weeks a month for ten years with my asthmatic son in RGH and saw standards decline. am not kidding when i say night nurses spent most of the night in day room chatting and watching tv or knitting. and if you went in and said some child was crying - would be told to mind your own child! my opinion of the nursing care went steadily downhill. now - i wouldnt trust my grandkids to them - neither would my son . we would all lie and go to another hospital - even prince charles up in merthyr as its better than RGH

loftus

bumpoowee wrote: »

Cleaners regularly mop up !!!! for NMW. Just because a job is unpleasant doesn't mean it warrants a high wage. Nurses are certainly not low paid the job adverts I've looked at are generally £30k+ and I believe starting rate is around £20k, which is a very good wage to start on, for what is essentially a semi-skilled job at best. Many graduates work in jobs that require detailed technical knowledge and constant training whereas nursing is often just basic tasks like cleaning and doesn't change much over time.

No doubt I've opened myself up to abuse here for daring question NHS workers, but I do get tired of people going on about how nurses/teachers etc get a raw deal when if you look at the facts they really don't. What I would say is that in my own experience recently I found the midwives very good during my partners labour but their advice at all other times was crap and health visitors who are very well paid are without exception a complete waste of public money giving terrible advice with a healthy dose of a consdescending attitude mixed in.

I have to say that I have read a lot of rubbish on these boards over the years but this has to be right up there.

My ex is a nurse working on a cancer ward. I have no reason to have any particularly good feeling towards her but I would never deny the importance of her job, the skills she needs to do it properly or the continuing training and education she has to undergo to keep up with the constant changes and advancement in medicine.

The OP, and others on this thread have had terrible experiences but the vast majority of people receive excellent care from the NHS and the people who work for it. Sadly the health service is a political football and there is undoubtably far too much bureaucracy but those on the front line, for the most part, do a very good job.

patchwork_cat

bumpoowee wrote: »

Cleaners regularly mop up !!!! for NMW. Just because a job is unpleasant doesn't mean it warrants a high wage. Nurses are certainly not low paid the job adverts I've looked at are generally £30k+ and I believe starting rate is around £20k, which is a very good wage to start on, for what is essentially a semi-skilled job at best. Many graduates work in jobs that require detailed technical knowledge and constant training whereas nursing is often just basic tasks like cleaning and doesn't change much over time.

No doubt I've opened myself up to abuse here for daring question NHS workers, but I do get tired of people going on about how nurses/teachers etc get a raw deal when if you look at the facts they really don't. What I would say is that in my own experience recently I found the midwives very good during my partners labour but their advice at all other times was crap and health visitors who are very well paid are without exception a complete waste of public money giving terrible advice with a healthy dose of a consdescending attitude mixed in.

Nurses are not semi- skilled. In the past nurses did have a caring role and were a lot less skilled than today, but as I say increasingly nurses are being treated as clinicians. However I do agree in a way that nurses and teachers are not the only low paid graduates. I would argue that a lot of graduates in the public sector are low paid.

When I see the pay young people on the debt free wanabee board for example receive, it makes me cross. The public sector is low paid. A comparable job in the private sector receives a lot more. However it does depend on your degree I am sure there are a lot of 'Mickey mouse' degrees in the private sector that don't earn very much, but when you can get a degree in circus skills!!!

Must be honest though my experience of Health visitors certainly didn't warrant pay in the £30K range, (they are band 6 and up)! Although I would argue nurses are not usually paid £30K upwards without a speciality or promotion, perhaps nurses could comment - band 5 is not £30K up.

I have commented above though that IMO one of the problems with the NHS is that there is no one to take on the caring perhaps more menial role that was the nurses domain. Tandraig I agree and also agree from what I see about management and too many chiefs!

However I also have concerns over shift patterns, one of my best friends is a nurse and she will be given a late and then an early - how is she supposed to have a family life with shifts like that? Also suddenly a week of nights will be put in .

fly_dragon_fly

we had axa health insurance and i had the best care at chaucer hospital in canterbury when i had a lump removed we only had it two weeks (the insurance i mean) and i had been on the waiting list for 6 months on the nhs while on axa and at the chaucer hospital i had the lump removed 2 weeks later and they were the lovelist people ever.

if you can afford it i would defo do private.

Savvy_Sue

Errata wrote: »

Mixed sex attendance wards are, I think, complicit with Dept of Health regs. Mixed sex 'ordinary' wards are not complicit, and I understand some of those still exist at Pinders.

They would probably say it's not a 'ward' as such, but my dad has just spent over 24 hours on the Clinical Decision Unit (at a completely different hospital). Although I think they tried to keep men and women in separate 6 bed alcoves, they didn't manage it. Very little space to move, not enough chairs for visitors, quite hard to find a nurse to find out what was going on!

But it got him out of A&E, which must help their stats there ...