What do you say?

Nurses General Nursing

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What do you say to a pt, pt's family or both, when they complain about the nursing care given by one of your co-workers? Sometimes I'm at a loss and I know the family is correct and this nurse SUCKS!

I had two conversations yesterday about the same nurse. Since I'm charge, I get pulled into these conversations in attempt to diffuse them and give good customer service. A pt and her husband came to me yesterday and pulled me into the hall for a discussion. Here is that conversation. The second scenario pretty echoed this one

Me: Hi, I'm Suzie Q, the charge nurse, how can I help you?

Pt: "I want to complain about the night nurse I had. She was very rough with my IV, and I had to remind her to plug in my second small IV bag that she left on the IV hook for 2 hrs. The nurse told me that she was new again to the floor (she had been in the charge role for 7 months, and never left the desk because she's lazy. Her nursing experience is well over 20 yrs). She just seemed really scattered and was rude when I asked for pain meds. I took a walk down the hall to remind her to plug in my other IV bag and she was at the desk reading."

Me: I'm so sorry you had this experience. I will most certainly pass this on to the manager and he will come down and speak with you (which he did). What can I do for you at this present time?

Pt: Nothing. You have been great, as are the other nurses. Thanks for your time.

What else can I say or do??? I don't want to think I'm brushing this patient off but they are right. This nurse is not a good nurse. I want the pt to leave feeling good about their stay, but I just know they will remember the one bad apple and not all the good care they received. I'm really tired of putting out fires like this.:mad:

Yes, this is a good theory but have you ever had something devastating happen to you RIGHT before you had to leave for work? I have. It was too late to call off. I was a wreck the whole shift. Thankfully, my coworkers were understanding. I wasn't a perfect nurse that night. I did the best I could and as far as I know, I didn't make any mistakes and patients did not complain.

It's HARD to leave your personal life at home when you're at work. Especially when something devastating happens.

That said, I think you handled the situation appropriately. You addressed their complaints and forwarded it to your manager. It's up to him what happens to her from here.

To the OP:

This is nothing more than a red herring to distract you from your original intent. One bad night for a nurse doesnt move ANYONES peers to complain about them.Continual sloppy performance NEEDS to be reported and you did so. Congrats!

Pt's complain often, and thier motives are sometimes suspect, but if you believe a lack of care happened, then it is your duty to not only make a report, but to FOLLOW UP and make sure that consequences occcur. If they don't, than take it up the ladder.

Don't worry about "your job if I make a fuss", worry about your job if you report it and nothing happens. Do you REALLY want to work in such a place?

What's really bad is when you get a similar complaint from a resident in a LTC facility and the resident is supposed to be "not with it". Pretty bad when poor nursing care is obvious even to the cognitively impaired.

Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

I agree that personal problems should be left at the door. You seem to have quite a lot on your plate, OP. You also recognize that you can depend on your team mates when you need extra help. That is professionalism at its best. We are all human.

However, it is a much different scenario when co-workers are constantly bringing their problems to work. It leads to poor performance and takes precious time from management and the staff to repeatedly address the issues of the co-worker. I see this all too often.

I commend you for handling yourself in a professional manner.

You handled it perfectly.

I think I will try to do so, BluegrassRN. Our shifts are varied, so I migh not see her for a couple of weeks. If she calls in, then I won't see her for close to a month. It will be an uncomfortable situation, no doubt about it.

Ironic as I just read the article Silence kills...

Sometimes, with shift variation, it's impossible to talk to the person directly. If you can in a timely manner, I would. It's an uncomfortable situation, but I think it's important. You have be non-accusatory in this situation. Something like "Hey, Jane, I need to talk to you about the patient you gave me last night, Mr. S in 214. He was upset and stated X, Y, and Z. I apologized to him about it/got him some different meds/explained the procedure (whatever), but since he was so mad, I also wrote it up/directed him to the manager/informed the manager."

If the nurse gets mad at you, I'd say "Hey, I'm just telling you this as a courtesy. *I* didn't complain about you, *the patient* did. I just thought you'd rather hear it from me first than from the director in a week."

More likely, the nurse gets upset and tells you what happened. Sometimes the patient is completely unreasonable, misperceived the situation, or is lying; sometimes not. Your response depends upon what's going on. If the patient is unreasonable, I usually say something like "I've been there. I'm sorry you had a bad night. He probably just needed to vent. At least you don't have him again tonight!"

If it's someone who is chronically getting complaints, though, I don't beat around the bush. "I'm sorry it was a bad night for you. This isn't an easy conversation for me. I think it's fair to tell you that, as a charge nurse, this isn't the first complaint I've gotten about your time management/communication skills/nursing skills from patients. If patients were complaining about me, I would want to know about it specifically, so that I could use that as a tool from improvement. In any case, I thought you would want to know."

Ugh...I get this a bunch where I work.

I appologize, listent, tell them what I can do for them right now. Sometimes their complaints might leave you speechless and I just tell them that. "I'm sorry, I'm speechless...I really don't know what to say for that BUT, I will make sure I answer your call bell, get you xyx......" Then report it and I do like the "Let me get your phone number for my manager" approach.

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