Here we go again!

On the BBC news today Nurses are going to be disciplined for not washing their hands. In fact a Nurse was reported as being struck off for not washing her hands after treating a patient with MRSA.
"A woman has become the first nurse in England to be struck off for failing to wash her hands after treating a patient with MRSA."
Key words here: Nurse, woman, failing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7108925.stm

I will wash my hands thoroughly but will not use that alcohol based hand gel because my hands instantly break down with that stuff! To me ,having hands covered in open,blooding cracks is more of an infection and health hazard than not using that gel !

We are monitored regularly about once a week, if we do our handwashing and geling properly.

About that article, apparantly there's more behind it.

5cats

Agreed, but it doesn't excuse the thrust of the headline. She was struck off for much more than that but all the public see when they scan the news is another dirty Nurse. With the announcement of disciplinary action for not washing hands, the public will naturally think that the only way to get a Nurse to wash their hands is to threaten discipline.
Remember what happened with the MMR vaccine hysteria? I don't know about anyone else but we have a bit of a measles outbreak where I work.
What if we get to the point where the public consciousness shifts away from going to hospital when they are ill because all the Nurses are dirty?
We are all responsible for health, including the media.

I too felt bad for the patient, I don't blame the training. Administration and nursing are
responsible for the care of a patient. They are obviously stretched too thin. Its disgusting.
Surely they could have washed the patient hair, you
don't need a hairdresser for that.

It takes time and staff to provide essence of care we all know this.
In the last 2 days i've been on as it was quiet i managed to speak to 2-3 patient famillys as we will need complex discahrge and need to get familly imput. And do a bath and tea round(i was on the late yesterday). i'd like to have a job description as it seems most tasks get turfed to nursing staff and it one more job i need to do taking up my time. MY trust although good is amining for targets and we have become very task foccussed so that we can say we are meeting our goals. i don't know if the focuss on paper pushing is good documentation practice, shows good pat care or is just target meeting. If i have a bay of 8pt it is only on the w/e that i can except to ensure all are bathed/showered and sometimes dealing with resitance from untrained staff.

Funny enough at my interview 2 weeks ago, one of the scenarios was how would I deal with a family who complain that their mother has not been washed.
By the way understaffing is not confined to the NHS, I work in a private hospital and could rant all day about lack of staffing, actually my main reasons for leaving are:
1- understaffing
2- working too many weekends for the hours I do, getting no breaks and consistently getting off duty late in the mornings
3- bad salary
4- I need to work in a bigger hospital for emigration

The irony is though I have secured a job in the local NHS hospital where I filed a complaint last month about the neglectful way they treated my mother and the outcome was that they gave all these reasons that didn't really address the issues I identified to them, so I am a little nervous going there, but it takes all of us individually to keep the battle of improving nursing care going so I will plod on LOL

Hi, this is my first post. The story is sad, but I feel maybe a little over exaggerated. I would like to think that these things don't happen but recently I have been witness to one or 2 of the complaints myself. I have had to approach the nurses involved and remind them what good nursing care involves, the reply from one of them was "But we don't have time!" At this point I did take her into the office and speak to her about prioritising and professionalism. I had a grumpy nurse for the rest of the shift but at least the patients received better care! I have to include that you can't always get patients to eat or drink. Sometimes the patient will refuse a wash and it can take a lot of time and persuasion just to get the "important" bits done. And the TED stockings! I ahve to audit how many we use, another audit, I currently have 6 audits on the ward and management do expect them to be done whilst the allocated nurse is on duty. They do make time to get them completed but all of them complain that they trained to be a nurse not an auditor! And just recently we discussed as a team the changing role of the nurse and this included all the new form filling in we now have to do because the hospital has reduced the staff in areas such as District Liason team, social work team and tissue viability team! It all falls down to us to complete the extra form filling cos the teams responsible are so depleted they don't have the resourses themselves!

Being at Uni at the prsent, I am alwas surprised at lecturers tellin our class that we have lots to teach pre reg students, and that they are saddened by the level of nurses they are producing. Each time I hear one saying this I want to scream at them...if they do not think that they are producing good nurses, what the heck are they doing about it? Is it not a nursing program's ( and hence the lecturers) responsiblity to ensure the nurses that they pass have the ability to be a good professional nurse.