any nhs nurses on here?

teajug

Well, I certainly would not be happy if was in hospital (BTW i never intend to go into NHS and would rather die in pain at home) when a nurse working in care of frail elderly patients had to come on an open forum to get instructions on how to administrate drugs to frail elderly patients.:eek::eek::eek:

As said above considering what has been in the media recently how elderly people are being treated in hospital, again I would not go near them unless I was unconscious and did not know what was happening to me.:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

keithdc

Well, I certainly would not be happy if was in hospital (BTW i never intend to go into NHS and would rather die in pain at home) when a nurse working in care of frail elderly patients had to come on an open forum to get instructions on how to administrate drugs to frail elderly patients.:eek::eek::eek:

As said above considering what has been in the media recently how elderly people are being treated in hospital, again I would not go near them unless I was unconscious and did not know what was happening to me.:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::e ek

There, There.... don't worry I'm sure your copy of the Mail on Sunday will arrive soon!

I am intrigued what you plan to do if you are involved in a car accident... I'm pretty sure that the NHS is more successful at fixing broken bones than right-wing press.

Why are you so upset about the elderly? The OP is going for a generic staff nurse post... the only person to mention the elderly was silkyuk whose wife works with the elderly.

I think it is reasonable to worry about interviews... performance in stressful situations often does not reflect the a person's normal performance.

cr1mson

I would far rather have a nurse who rechecked his/her calculations as it didn't tally with his/her rough idea than blindingly administered them!

And agree with keithdc this is for an interview situation and a nothing to do with elderly anyway!

C

milliemonster

I am an NHS nurse, you will need to be able to work out accurate calculations for g/mg/mcg, make sure you convert all to the same formula or you will lose points on the calculation even if you get the correct answer (eg if it says 1g and 300mg, make sure you convert the 1g into 1000mg in the calculation first), you will need to be able to work out drip rates and know the difference for blood and blood product drip rates in infusion sets compared to crystalloid infusion sets.

Do lots of practice on the sums, the NMC are now very tight on drug calculations (quite rightly IMO) and you have to get 100% to pass, there is no margin for error, the best advice I can give you is when you sit the tests, just picture yourself in a reallife scenario as if you were on duty having to work out that calculation for real, you know you can't get it wrong. Also and make sure you show your workings out clearly, as I said earlier, you will lose points for incorrect workings out even if you get the correct answer

getmore4less

keithdc wrote: »

I think it is reasonable to worry about interviews... performance in stressful situations often does not reflect the a person's normal performance.

Interview stressfull, doddle compared to real life in some hospitals.

Nurse looking after 6 patients on a 12hr shift with no breaks and having to do a drug round as the only qualified person on a 20+ bed ward, also having to check the written up doses because the doctors can get them wrong(especialy with children).

Standard practice in profesional world to have methods for estimating an answer to make sure the calculation is in the right ball park if using calculators, tables, computers.

Crazy thing is in our educaton system failure is acceptable.

In real life it is extremely important to get the right answers a lot of the time.

lindopski_2

My advice is this

get a job in the private sector instead.
Public sector employees are now classed as little better than dole scroungers by a large portion of the UK public.
you only have to look at 'any' post about your pension on pretty much 'any' website to see what I mean.

I know that as an NHS nurse you will work damn hard and with little thanks, your colleagues will also be working damn hard alongside you but the thanks you get from those you save is a nice big slap in the face.

there are still 5% (ish) of people that appreciate what you do though and I am one of them.
To save yourself the grief though - get a private sector job instead.

Banking and finance seems to be the areas the country (and indeed the MP's) favour the most, maybe a career there could be a winner.