Humanitarian Crisis in UK

Not all old people are racist and obnoxious.

Just switched it on

Anyone watching 'Hospital' on BBC2 now?

I think a lot of experiences, good or bad, is down to the nursing staff.
Some are wonderful, some should never have chosen nursing as a career.
The good ones are usually rushed off their feet, the poor ones either indifferent or, as in the case of some I have come across, impatient to the point of cruelty.

I think the majority are good.

And - why are the clinics always extremely well staffed with nurses and HCAs some of whom seem to move at a most leisurely pace and have time to chat, sing and have a little dance, whereas the wards are often understaffed?

I can understand why people don't choose geriatric nursing. When my mother has been in hospital, she's been totally obnoxious to all the nurses. I think she expected personal slaves - all white, of course. I would have been very glad to see the back of her.

send = spend

That sounds really horrible, but I'm afraid that people who look back to the past as halcyon days have got it wrong.

I spent many months of my life in hospitals as a child up to the age of 7 and I think the experiences scarred me. The nurses always seemed cold and they were more concerned about whether my bed was 'tidy'. We had to sit up straight when Matron did her rounds. I was usually the youngest child on the ward. I had books and jigsaws, which my parents brought in, but that was it. I have two younger sisters, so my mother couldn't send much time with me. Visiting hours were restricted anyway and my sisters weren't allowed to visit. I could go for hours without speaking to anybody. I couldn't go to the toilet without help and I vividly remember the embarrassment when I wet myself. Nurses told me off when I did.

My next spell in hospital was as a teenager to have my tonsils removed. I remember kicking and screaming because I didn't want to go into hospital and I remember not being given any post-op pain relief.

I avoided any contact with hospitals, if I could help it, until my first child was born. I'm afraid my experience on the maternity ward was horrendous, especially the callous attitude of the midwife on the post-natal ward. I put in an official complaint and discovered later that she had been sacked, because there had been so many complaints. So it really wasn't all rosy!

I have only been in hospital once in the last few years and I could have been in a hotel room. The staff were lovely, but run off their feet. I guess it depends on luck.

I know! I've met you

Me too Anya

Exactly Roses and that situation doesn't just exist on geriatric wards. Good nurses are always complaining about colleagues who think they're 'living in an episode of causality' (quote from nurse re all the 'gossip stations' as she calls them)

I had the temerity to interrupt one of these gossip-fests to ask for some water for my FIL.. You ought to have seen the looks I got. Happily I'm made of stronger stuff that they realised.

Yeak??? New word invented by my tablet!

A few years ago I went in for an urgent but scheduled operation. Two-yeak of us arrived as instructed on the ward.
The ward sister was fuming because she had been phoned by the 'bed manager' and told to send us home as no beds were available. The sister said beds were available and ready for us, operations were scheduled for the next day and she knew exactly what was going on on her ward, she didn't need some 'young bed manager' telling her how to run it.
We waited as instructed by Sister, beds were available, operations took place and the nurses and cleaners were wonderful.
We need more good ward sisters like that, able to run a tight ship.

The experiences of other posters show the same problems are nationwide.
As roses pointed out nurses huddled round chatting whilst patents buzzers are going off, was my experience at Stafford & Stoke Hospital
I found in both hospitals that the maternity care was good
The midwives were on the ball at all times.
Whereas on the other wards care & nursing was poor.
Why is this.?
I know its probably old fashioned
but there is a need for a Ward Matron type figure who controls the ward, nursing staff and aspects such cleanliness of the ward and patents.
(A friend's daughter is a matron at NHS but is office bound away from the other nursing staff)
The matron would also provide necessary information to the family One of the things that became a big problem during the time my late father was in and out of hospital from 2003 until 2015 was information and communication
Information from medical staff was hard to extract and the staff passing on information re my fathers needs to other staff such as OTs or physio was verging on useless.
To keep my father fed and communicate on his behalf meant that my sister or I had to be with him daily
The battle with sorting his aftercare was another story.
My fear is for people who have no family to be at there side night and day
Or just simply that family have jobs and children to care and can't be at the bedside.

I think geriatric care is an area of medicine very few opt for. My friend's daughter chose it when she was training as a nurse, but I think she was one of a very few. How you make it more popular I don't know. I think some of the nurses you get are there because they have no choice- often agency nurses. Some are excellent but they vary tremendously

I posted before I had seen your post trisher and yes, you are right.

Yes, the ward/ bed could be funding, but feeding wasn't, there were nurses clustered around the nurses station chatting, laughing, showing each other things on phones etc when meals were dumped by catering staff, and I went and got nurses to help( others) when I saw they were struggling.I also refilled water jugs and glasses, and tried to hurry them up ( staff) when an old person was distressed by lack of bed pan appearing.I also changed the sheets myself on DD's bed from a huge cupboard full of sheets when they were not changed for four days.
These situations are worse in these wards than anywhere else in the hospital and seem to make nurses very hard and uncaring, they obviously hate having to do a stint on them and it has an awful effect on everybody.Because I stayed there at all times of day and night I got to see the full picture.

But they are lack of funding issues when nurses are stressed and have too many patients to take care of, when cleaning is outsourced to the cheapest provider and staff numbers are cut to the bone because there is no money left. How can it not be lack of funding?
It is of course also a lack of staff who want to work on geriatric wards. This area has always been one that failed to attract the best staff and is still seen by many as the unattractive end of healthcare. What can be done about that I'm not sure. Even paying more wouldn't really help, it takes a special sort of person to want to work with the elderly who may be terminal or suffering from incurable chronic illnesses.

Just heard a friend has been taken to hospital in an ambulance and had to remain on the ambulance trolley for 6 hours before getting a bed. This meant that the ambulance was tied up too!
Time and again we hear that it's due to an ageing population - it's our fault therefore for getting old. But surely with all these surveys- which a ridiculous amount - and statistics it wasn't beyond the wit of man to see the trends and make suitable preparations?

The fact that she wasn't on an appropriate ward almost certainly was a funding issue, because hospitals can't keep spare beds in case somebody needs one, so patients are dumped wherever there is a spare bed.

The cleaning would have been because cleaning services have now been contracted out to the lowest bidder. To maximise profits, they don't train and supervise staff adequately. Staff are paid minimum wage and aren't looked after properly, so they couldn't really care about their work.

Feeding has always been a problem in hospitals, because there just aren't enough staff at the right times. Most hospitals seem to rely on volunteers and family/friends.

I'm not making excuses, but funding would help overcome some of those problems.

I have first hand experience of the same Cherry and Anya when I almost lived on a ward where my DD was ( they put her in a ward full of elderly people) this was for 10 days, then she was moved to a gynae ward ( her condition was terrible cellulitis!) and then to another hospital on the cancer ward! She never managed to get on an actual ward that was compatible with her illness.All this took about a month.
I felt so sorry for the often confused and frightened elderly patients on the first ward.
That one was the worst ward by far.Food dumped down and taken away again with not a word etc.Cleaning staff who came at all hours but did very little except stare at patients while pushing a dirty mop around for a bit, bins hardly ever emptied and overflowing, patients wanting bedpans urgently, but the 'right' staff to bring bedpans not being there to do it.These things are not lack of funding issues.

So who's going to do that?

Cherrytree has highlighted an area which is indeed in chaos. I have experienced it when my FiL was in hospital. It contributed to his death.

Which goes to show that the NHS needs a thorough overhaul from the bottom up, from unacceptable ward practices and lack of good nursing/care procedures right through to the funding and structuring nationally,

Thank you for your suggestions, cherrytree. I have no experience of that kind of ward.

I thought hospitals already employed healthcare assistants to do the work which the former SENs used to do.

www.cuh.org.uk/corporate-information/working-for-us/healthcare-support-workers/what-will-i-do/healthcare-assistants

voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/01/11/nhscrisis-bbc-reports-what-theresa-may-and-jeremy-hunt-are-hiding-now-lets-see-them-resign/

I agree with you, cherrytree, about SENs.
Feeding is a problem in many hospitals, with not many people knowing that anyone who has a carer at home can have that carer going onto the ward at meal times. All wards have a policy about it, even if you read what it says on the doors about meal times.
All the problems you say about your father happened with my husband in Durham Hospital. Once when I was in there my husband became quite agitated about another patient. He knew that this patient was a vegetarian and they were giving him cottage pie. He was vegetarian for religious reasons. Fortunately we managed to get it changed before the patient ate any of it. He was someone who couldn't feed himself, and couldn't talk properly because of his illness.

rachaelswindon.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-nhs-crisis-blame-tories-its-their.html