elderly in hospital

twizzle - you are a STAR!

Perhaps Geraldine or Josie could arrange a web chat with someone from Age UK.

Okay, Magsie, let's approach Age UK like a plague of locusts...we must unite in our effort to make our voices heard.

I'm afraid that the post of Matron was brought back some years ago. They are now known as Modern Matrons and over 5000 of them are already employed in our hospitals. The emphasis is on the "modern" and I don't think they will ever be the fearsome figures that the old matrons were. They are still supposed to ensure high standards of nursing care though.
I believe that the charity Age UK is also very concerned about the failure of elderly care. Perhaps they would be able to advise us how to take this further?

So...bring back MATRON - please.

My friend has recently retired after 40 years in nursing. She told me that her Matron (in the first hospital she worked at) told her that she should treat every patient (that she ever came into contact with) as if that patient was her own mother, father, brother, sister, child, and to treat that person with the respect and dignity that she would expect her own loved ones to receive if they ever required hospital care.
She adhered to this ethos throughout her working career, and always believed in those 'words of wisdom'

Yes, Geraldine, don't let it drop. Most of us will have experienced the disastrous at time inhuman system and equally worrying it will be our turn sooner or later. Let's not waste our collective voice.

I am not a nurse , my only experience has been helping my Mother through many illnesses and hospital stays . I have come to the conclusion that the trend to have smaller wards with a central nurses station has had a detrimental effect on care and cleanliness of those wards . On my many visits to my Mother in hospital I was appalled at the time spent by the nurses and clerical staff talking and laughing while around the corner a patient needed attention . I know we shouldn't harp on about 'the old days ' but with the long wards that we used to have the Sister had her desk at the end and could see any evidence of neglect and lack of cleanliness . and nip it in the bud . Please let's all complain loud and long until the Health Service is back where we all want it to be . WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS .
Sorry , I don't often get this 'wound up' but this IS very important to us all ..

Geraldine.....so what do we do next?

Geraldine, we seem to have a lot of interest in this maybe if the input continues e mails to Andrew Lansley might help. I don't know if it would have any effect as it is driven by lack of caring training and lack of resources, the money all goes to high profile treatments. Mind you I don't know what the answer is, wish I did .

I've been moved to tears by the stories from sister Gransnetters. I worked for a county association for the blind for a number of years and fought for recognition of the difficulties faced by visually impaired people admitted to hospital.
Simple things like, with the patient's permission (always given in our area), putting a nationally recognised sign of visual impairment (eye with a line drawn through it) above the bedhead; introducing the patients on either side to the VI patient, walking them to the bathroom (mind map) and telling domestic staff to be aware of the eye symbol and to always put things back in the same place, are basic examples of dignity and respect.
Helping VI patients with food and drink is essential; it should also be the case for all patients. Simple nursing care is being lost in the drive to make nursing a degree-level career, leaving humanity on the sidelines.

Gransnetters need to lobby on these points. Andrew Lansley - watch out!

I also trained as a registered nurse in the 1960s and things were incredibly strict. Matron and ward sisters were often highly unpleasant characters and the nurses were petrified of them. No one would want to return to that era. However patient care was mostly of a high standard although the staff were overworked. I do remember feeling very proud of my profession and we young nurses were compassionate and respectful towards our patients. Everyone from staff nurses to nursing auxiliaries got involved in the bed-pan round for example so certain less pleasant tasks were not the domain of a certain section of the staff alone.

Something seems to have gone wrong in the mid-1970s. I can pinpoint it, as I went abroad to work for a few years and when I came back, there was a different atmosphere in the hospitals where I worked. There seemed to be quite a bit of rivalry between SENs and SRNs, less team spirit, and huddles of nurses having coffee at odd times during the day. Uniforms had become the white US type ones so everyone looked the same. There were male managers instead of matrons. I do wonder what was happening around that time within the country. Were there some major policy changes in the NHS which could have caused patient care to become of secondary importance?

Like others, I am afraid of being treated with disdain when I am older and need help. I have even agreed on some kind of signal which I will give to my children should I be badly treated and unable to communicate properly (e.g. after a stroke).

PLEASE let us not let this matter die a dismal death...

Is there a clever Gransnetter who can think of a way to take this matter to the next level? We share and care - but we need to know how we can help to make a real difference. I am not afraid of death but I am absolutely TERRIFIED of going through the experience in a hospital. Matron was indispensible! Why did she have to go? Is there any way we can get her back where she belongs? If so, I promise to step through the hospital door (with some dignity) when I next need to. At the moment I'm terribly angry and frustrated and scared...

Thank you for smiley info harrigran , don't seem to have square brackets on my apple computer so can only type it in. But thanks anyway.

I trained at Sunderland General jennybumble but did secondments at Eye infirmary, childrens' hospital and Orthopaedic and accident hospital.
To do a smiley type a square bracket and write smile then another square bracket, don't put any spaces in.

I too am a retired nurse and am sad to say nurses don't know what hard work is nowadays. I can remember when we were on night duty, before we went off duty in the mornings we (two nurses, a senior and a junior) had to do all 42 patient's temperatures, give out the teas, give out the drugs (which we both checked which ensured accuracy), wash or blanket bath all bed ridden patients, strip and make 42 beds, give any enemas prescribed and write the report before going off duty. In the night, night sister would come round and we had to stand at the foot of each bed and tell her the patient's name, age, diagnosis and all the drugs they had been given that evening. Heaven help us if we didn't know. Nowadays they don't even seem to know who their own four patients are and spend most of their time huddled round the nurses station chatting. I also feel things were so much cleaner then and we took a pride in the care. I know incredible advances have been made in the care that is required and the patients are more accurely ill as our patients used to stay in much longer but bring back that strict matron and instill a bit of pride in the care - please......

Don't know about the smileys mamanC but have tried, someone out there must know.

Mumsnet has had a lot of publicity and made the politicians nervous. I wonder if gransnet might be able to do the same and not let the recent reports (with more to come) from the Quality and Care Commission be swept under the carpet. Beware SUPERGRANS!!!!!!

P.S How do you get the smileys (and angries) onto these comments.?!

As grannies do you think there is anything we can do to help make a difference? As mamanC said doing nothing achieves nothing. As nurses we were always worried what would happen when us older and more experienced nurses retired, I feel so sorry for the good nurses of today, they get tarnished with the bad press as well, and they get no back up only more "elf and safety".
Where did you train harrigran? Just interested.

Can always remember visiting my Mum....who had recently had surgery for her cancer. I arrived on her ward to be greated by the sight of her sat up in bed in an unstaffed multi bed ward...trying to change her soiled nightdress on her own...her tubes from various parts meant that she was stuck with the nightdress half up revealing her naked body to all. I ran to her side and pulled the curtains and sorted her out. She was a quiet uncomplaining sort with typical working class dignity who hated to make a fuss. I was heart broken by what I saw. She died a few months later in a hospice after having a week of dedicated and wonderfully gentle care lavished upon her. I cannot understand why one facility can be so completely different to the other. It was nothing to do with money because the hospice ran on a charity shoe string to the point that on each bed was a hand made patchwork quilt. My darling Mum had not wanted a cure...she knew it was not going to happen. She just wanted care and compassion.

dorsetpennt, you could be me talking. I started my training in 1964 and everything you experienced was true of our hospital too. I hasten to add this was not a big teaching hospital but just an average general hospital. Infection was unheard of and yes I have cleaned floors, sinks, whatever was required.

Me again! Thank you to the retired nurses who have spoken because always in the back of my mind is the awareness that I am not a nurse and so I can't fully understand the difficulties from their point of view and so comments from you are particularly valuable. And i agree with everything you have said.

And as babyjack says, it is not only the elderly who are suffering. Would you believe my 24 year old daughter had her gall bladder removed in September in a Day care unit so that meant she was sent home a few hours after her operation (at closing time) drugged to the eyeballs on morphine. During her week's stay the previous month it had been noted she could not tolerate morphine and, true enough ,she had to be readmitted as an emergency that same night. She was sent home the following day only to be readmitted that night again, as an emergency. The paramedics and the A&E staff couldn't believe what was happening to her. Had her intolerance been written into her notes during her week's stay after all or did the Day Care staff fail to read her notes properly? She is still suffering stomach pains, struggling to hold down a job and complete her MA at uni. This week the hospital doctor at the hospital in the city she has moved to told her they requested from the original hospital details of a scan they had taken. That hospital has not replied. She has to go back into hospital and is terrified after her experiences of being left alone in a side ward vomitting through the night in acute pain. One nurse walked in, in the early hours, walked around the bed where my daughter was lying with her head hanging over her sick bowl,crying, checked her drip and then left, without a word.

This weekend we are trying to work out whether we can afford a private consultation for her, but where to start?

You know, someone cleverer than me, Bonhoeffer, said that it only takes good people to do nothing for evil to flourish. So as supernana says, PLEASE let's do something.

I have recalled another incident that distressed me regarding patient Non-Care. I was recovering from a hip replacement op' and the lady in the next bed had had a knee op'. She needed a bed-pan and kept calling for one. Eventually, she made so much fuss, a commode was brought to her bed...she could not stand properly and fell heavily on to the floor. From behind the curtains I could hear her cries and the angry words from the nurses stressing that she was too damned heavy to lift back on to her feet. I begged the doctor to free me from that hospital two days before I was due to be discharged. In spite of the lift being out of order, I climbed three flights of stairs to the grotty/dirty bathroom to prove that I was capable of getting into a bath. The effort nearly killed me but I was determined not to let it show. I was told that the plane that was to transport me from the hospital to a small airport near our home was unavailable for several days. No way - I thought! We then motored for almost four hours before I staggered in to our lovely wee home...and from that moment I knew for certain that I was on the mend...