Humanitarian Crisis in UK

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

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

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.

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.

Yeak??? New word invented by my tablet!

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.

Me too Anya

I know! I've met you

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.

send = spend

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.

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?

Anyone watching 'Hospital' on BBC2 now?

Just switched it on

Not all old people are racist and obnoxious.

Oh oh I don't think I can watch!!!

This was on Radio 4 You and Yours yesterday.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b087pf0l

The hospital involved had been told that Theresa May didn't want any of this to get out.
Just thought I'd tell you. Pass it on.

You mean you've only just come across it now?

It's bloody inhuman poor bugger

daphnedill what you describe mirrors my own experience as a child . An awful , frightening and painful experience , my Mum was not allowed to visit because of the risk of infection , I was in for three weeks ! Most of the nurses were hard and wouldn`t put up with crying children . I was also not given pain relief after surgery and still remember the pain now ! Things weren`t always rosy in the `old` days

I thought the idea was that these centres were created with the promise of more capacity to deal with the surrounding population.

What a magnificent testament to the hard work and humanity of (most of) the people who work in hospitals. How they work under such pressure, especially doctors who already have the responsibility for people's lives, I can't imagine.

As one of the doctors said in the programme "there are only so many "efficiencies" one can make" and she went on to say that the people who are working so hard in the NHS are getting very tired of being told to be more efficient.

I felt so sorry for the chap whose cancer surgery was cancelled for the second time and really sad to see at the end of the programme that, despite an optimistic prognosis on discharge, he had died a few weeks later after contracting an infection. His doctor, who seemed such a lovely man who really cared about his patient, must have been upset.

I started watching it, Anya, but as I had an aortic dissection 3 years ago, with all those statistics, I couldn't watch the operation, so recorded the rest.
I might watch it when I feel braver.
I wasn't sure whether to be impressed that she drove her car. I certainly couldn't have, but I only had to go to a hospital a quarter of an hour away, which then sent me to a different one half an hour in the other direction when they realised that I didn't just have back-ache.
And, yes, Ana, I know I've said it all before, so you needn't bother to say so.

f77ms

I spent a few weeks in hospital every year until until I was 7. One year I spent even longer, because I had meningitis. I had to attend outpatients until I was into my teens. I was absolutely petrified of hospitals and dreaded being told I might need to be admitted. My son (now age 19) had two stays in hospital as a child and I can honestly say that the way children are treated has improved beyond recognition.

ww,

I'm not sure that they have more capacity. I think the idea is that expertise is concentrated in one place.