Re: Nurses.

My granddaughter has just started her third year as a student nurse, and before she was taken on at university she had to show that this is what she wanted by working in the community for six months. She worked in a local care home with dementia patients and is still working there on a casual basis as she enjoys it.

Re: Nurses.

It sounds like she will make a good nurse. I wish her well in her chosen profession.

Re: Nurses.

I can't believe some of the complaints about nurses that I have read on this thread and in the papers, I am elderly and have spent many months in hospital in the last 40+ years, I have been rushed in under blues many times in the last 4 years.
Nurses are only human, treat them with respect and they will reciprocate, make the days stressful for them and it is bound to stress them out.
I have seen many a cantankerous old person on the wards, and how the nurses keep their cool is beyond me, I have even told folks off for abusing nurses, some folks think they are their personnel servants, to bow down to them with a click of the fingers.
Continual use of buzzers is something that annoys me, they are meant for emergencies not to pick this up for me, get me this that and the other, there are not many of us on here who would put up with the behavior, of some patients who are thoughtless, and it is not just old folks either.
Folks who know they can walk to the toilet asking for bottles etc, annoys me, you get some who do nothing but moan.
Give nurses a break for Christs sake they are only human, there is not many of us who would put up with the hours they are now forced to work.
As for foreign nurses I have only praise for them, putting up with racism etc. just isn't fair.

Re: Nurses.

Thank you Wrinkley - I have no wish to get into a heated debate about nurses, but I do think that many people have little idea of the diverse roles nurses play or the responsibilities and stress both qualified nurses and HCA's actually have.

For Mesco M. The short list indicated some of the jobs all undertaken by healthcare assistants (auxiliaries) and again there is huge diversity within this role and NCA's are graded, but not RCN qualified or registered with the NMC.

Nursing is both a clinical profession and a vocation - In spite of what is said it is a caring profession, very demanding and with very high standards. Qualified nurses have great responsibility. A lot of people wouldn't last five minutes let alone survive a working lifetime in the environment many nurses cope with on a daily basis.

I am proud to say my daughter is a degree nurse and has a Masters in extending nursing practice, which she has achieved by working on the job. She loves her job, but I know what a toll it takes on her emotionally - you have to be made of tough stuff to be an effective professional nurse. Don't knock it.

Re: Nurses.

Good post. Nurses should be professional in their dealings with patients, but shouldn't get emotionally involved with them, imo.

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I agree that the majority of nurses in the majority of hospitals are both caring and professional. That does not and should not mean that where nursing standards do fall below acceptable minimums, they should be exempt from justified criticism. Recent reports from Staffordshire and other areas have shown that there are serious shortcomings in some Health Authorities. The experience of my wife in her most recent hospital stay were similarly appalling. That doesn't mean that all nurses are bad. The fact that other people's experience in other hospitals is excellent should also not be used to claim that all nursing is good. The important thing is to criticise and improve the bad and praise (and use as role models) those who are excellent. I still believe very strongly that our NHS is by far the best in the world, but that doesn't mean it should be exempt from criticism where criticism is justified.

Re: Nurses.

A number of people disagree with you re nurses cleaning but I must agree with you.

Someone spoke of putting people on the dole well judging by the way the cleaning in hospitals is done those people deserve not to have jobs. Many ward 'cleaners' came from countries where hygiene had a different level to those required to hospitals. There is little training for after all I can hear you say 'anyone can clean' this is not true.

Ask yourselves why there are so many bugs around the wards and I will tell you that it is because the hygiene levels of most hospitals is dismal thanks to cut backs and cleaners.

When I was nursing in the south of England I was not allowed to tell the ward cleaner that he/she had not done her job properly as this person did not work for the hospital but was sent by a cleaning agency and as I was told 'I was not her boss'

When I was in hospital recently the cleaning was beyond disgusting. There was a toilet in the ward used by women who had had hysterectomies or other gynae ops and children visiting their mums were allowed to use this small toilet/shower room. One morning a man doing some work on the ward wandered into the toilet with his filthy overalls and boots.

The NHS and the Government will not listen to the people on the shop floor and the quality of care and cleaning gets worse and worse. Florence Nightingale killed more patients than she helped, she was a very caring lady but her ideas of hygiene were terrible.

Re: Nurses.

Because cleaning has been put out to private contractors they will only clean to a service specification which is dictated by price and the time calculated to a job. If nurses were to be employed on cleaning duties the cost would be staggeringly prohibitive and an uneconomical use of highly skilled labour.
If anyone is to blame here it is again the government who decided to do away with in-house servcies and that some jobs could be done just as well by the private sector and they were put out to tender. There is training given (according to the service specification set) and I think it is irrelevant and a little unkind to say - "Many ward 'cleaners' came from countries where hygiene had a different level to those required to hospitals". I agree though that it is not true to say 'anyone can clean' - people who do the job of hospital cleaning need to be trained specifically in what is required, the relevance and how to clean in hospitals. It might not be a bad idea to take responsibility back to ward level giving the ward manager responsibility for overseeing the hygiene on his/her patch. A dedicated cleaner for each area who was actually part of the ward team might also be a reasonable idea, but I cannot agree that nurses are the most appropriate staff to undertake routine ward cleaning. It's not a matter of being "too post to clean".

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I agree with Mick B. In my previous post I mentioned my friend - he is a gentle and happy soul, would be reluctant to ask for help and is extremely grateful when given. The nurses said he was the best patient ever. I wonder if 'that' was the reason he was neglected while there. His wife found him naked twice, just a sheet to cover him, in the depths of winter. She would wash him. Twice she found him in a soaking wet bed. She had a long journey there too. Thank goodness he is at last home...

Re: Nurses.

nurses were once considered "the handmaidens" of the medical profession - but strangely enough it worked well - the daily physical and emotional and social needs of the patients were taken care of by nurses - the doctors may see them once or several times a week for a few minutes and decided how the treatment was going and the nurses would adjust their care accordingly.

most nurses were happy with this arrangement but there are always a few that aren't and so the rot set in. a hard core of nurses wanted to up their levels from 'handmaidens' to equal partners and so started seeking university training and obtaining degrees, masters and Phd even. What happened next should have been obvious - they had now moved up a notch and were no longer available to do the 24 hr nursing care that was done usually very well. but there was no group that could replace them that well and so we have the mess we have today - division of labor towards patients who require 24hr nursing care - and the divisions are not coordinated together - they all work independently - can you imagine the chaos.

many nurses IMO have moved out of their caring - vocational roles and become technicians and scientists and there is no one left to do the caring and the vocation. A sad day for us all