Discrimination in the UK

nambour51 · Jun 12, 2006

I would have thought that having another person present for some procedures could be considered essential to protect the male nurse (or female nurses for that matter) from unjust allegations! However to have a requirement for a chaperone for male nurses/female patients as policy is discriminatory.

karenG · Jun 13, 2006

all I can say as a nurse working in the UK.. there has to be more to this story than has been reported. I dont remember seeing anything about it in any of the nursing press either!

I know of male nurse who are not discrimated against.. and I know of male midwifes who happy deliver babies unchaparoned..

there is indeed a requirment for chaparones to be present when men are carrying out examinations.. but as a female I can refuse to carry out certain examinations if i am uncomfortable. so it cuts both ways. I have a collegue who was accused of rape by a patient... it was thrown out of court but it happens.

these days we need to be aware that our patients are becoming litigatious.. they seem to be taking lessons from across the pond!!

Karen

futureTMA · Jun 19, 2006

Just an update but Andrew Moyhing has won his case on appeal. It's been a ruckus in the UK news. He won 550 pounds (about $900) in compensation which he declined because he just wanted the judgement.

karenG · Jun 19, 2006

Just an update but Andrew Moyhing has won his case on appeal. It's been a ruckus in the UK news. He won 550 pounds (about $900) in compensation which he declined because he just wanted the judgement.

I live in the UK (London to be exact) and I've havent seen any 'ruskus' about this... and I do read the papers avidly! £550 (was actually £750) is a pittance..... thats more an insult than compensation.

this is the only report I have found so far............part of it anyway!!!!! its from the BBC web site. sorry cant reference it more, dated 6.6.06

'Limited victory'

Charlie Sheldon, Deputy Director of Nursing at Barts and London NHS Trust, said the tribunal had supported Mr Moyhing on only one limited point, and had awarded only the minimum level of compensation.

"In doing so they claimed Mr Moyhing had displayed an exaggerated and unduly sensitive reaction to being chaperoned.

"Allegations by Mr Moyhing that he had been held back in his career development or that male nurses were considered second class citizens have been soundly rejected.

"The tribunal also acknowledged that Barts and London NHS Trust had adopted its policies for good and objective reasons."

havent found much else but the student doesnt out smellling of roses so I'm left wondering what they didnt say!!!

the news is full of stuff about nurses being sacked/made redundant and wards shutting........ the NHS is falling apart.

Karen

Roy Fokker, BSN, RN · Jun 20, 2006

the NHS is falling apart.
Karen

A few years ago, when there was the whole row over fox hunting, this is what a friend of mine (a physician in the UK) had to say about the whole issue.

I quote:

As someone who has spent most of his adult life propping up part of the NHS, let me tell you why the NHS is not good enough for any man, rich or poor.
Lord Desai, a Labour peer, summed it up nicely. Middle-class people can, if push comes to shove, afford private healthcare. The only people who can't, and therefore are stuck with the NHS, are the poor. They have to rely on a Stalinist, monolithic, grossly inefficient system for their healthcare. The very system that was designed to protect the poorest dooms them to a system that would shame many third world countries.
Without the - and I choose my words carefully - incredible altruism of its staff, the NHS would have died long ago. It survives because doctors, nurses, and other staff are prepared to work long hours in excess of what they are paid. When I was a hospital junior, I was contractually required to work overtime, which was paid at ONE THIRD of my ordinary hourly rate. This meant that, after three years at university and three more at medical school, my average hourly rate of pay was on a par with one of the more senior cleaners. Every third weekend, I went to work on Friday morning, and worked through to Monday evening, with no guaranteed rest periods in that time. There were no meals available to me at the times that I had enough time for them - I had to rely on a crap vending machine that served up stale, date-expired meals that I usually couldn't warm up because the canteen microwave was broken/vandalised/stolen. The hospital provided me with vermin-infested accomodation for the few hours that I could sleep. The managers were paid bonuses if they made savings out of the staff budget, with the result that if any of us were off sick, they simply didn't bother trying to find locums, but made us cover each other's work. The excuse for this brutal and cynical exploitation was, as ever, that 'This is all the NHS can afford'. Despite this, we consistently provided something approaching world-class care for those who were unfortunate enough to need it. There was nothing we could do about the disgraceful waiting lists that held up anyone who needed the most trivial routine procedures, but anyone who came in as an emergency received the best possible care.
The gratitude the state showed us for this was to treat us like serfs. One of my contemporaries quit medicine forever at the end of our first year as juniors. I left the NHS and joined the army, and when I came out five years later, I found exactly the same mess as before. Now, nearer to retirement than the beginning of my career, I still see politicians playing games with healthcare, relying on the goodwill and generosity of staff instead of paying them properly, and I have patients who die on waiting lists. Even for the ones who have non-life-threatening conditions, they often have to spend a significant percentage of their remaining life on a waiting list, in constant pain. Meanwhile, I am now told that the government is going to fiddle with my retirement, and will probably make me work an extra five years to claim my pension. Note that this is a pension to which I have an entitlement, by virtue of having contributed to it throughout my time propping up the NHS. All this in what claims to be the fourth largest economy in the world.
Take it from someone who has given his best years to the ungrateful state: the NHS is a complete crap, and is beyond redemption. The large extra funding that this government has pumped in has gone on some 18,000 new managerial/administrative posts. The lies about the increased numbers of doctors and nurses are breathtaking - I have a friend who, through his circumstances, was counted FOUR TIMES as a new doctor.
Hmmmm.
Sorry about the rant, folks. To get back to the topic: I find it incredible that the government can hijack the news agenda with its cuddly bill about cuddly foxes, while the NHS continues to kill people, either by not providing them with adequate care, or by working them to death. The divorce, alcoholism and suicide rates amongst British doctors are far greater than any comparable profession, and far greater than doctors elsewhere in the west.

Any truth in this?

karenG · Jun 21, 2006

A few years ago, when there was the whole row over fox hunting, this is what a friend of mine (a physician in the UK) had to say about the whole issue.
Any truth in this?

hi Roy

I'm not hijacking this thread.. or trying not to anyway!!

The NHS is now target driven..... and would take several weeks to explain all that is going on here!!

but in a nutshell.. nurses here recently underwent a regrading exercise called 'agenda for change'. this was supposed to mean that you would be paid fairly for the job you actually do........ what it means is nothing like that!! We are finding that the more senior nurses who got banded a 7 or 8 (the grades went 1-8b) are now being made redundant because the hospitals cant afford them; my sisters hospital is closing the oncology unit; we are seeing ward closures, longer waiting lists........ junior doctors qualifying with no jobs to go to.........its a nightmare.

its made worse by health tourisim........the principle of the NHS is treatment free at the point of contact. so we are having people arriving here from all over the world and 'falling ill' and thus getting treatment. one london hospital is having huge problems with women from the poorer African countries getting on a plane to go shopping in London when they are 38wks pregnant and 'accidentally' going into labour and so having the babies here......

:banghead:

I'm sorry there is just so much going on and I cant give the patients the care they need...........

and this guy Andrew whatever- I've seen nothing in the press about him.. we are far more concerned with being able to care for patients than the trampled on feelings of a student nurse!! (no offense meant)

Karen

Roy Fokker, BSN, RN · Jun 22, 2006

Thanks Karen.

futureTMA · Jun 26, 2006

Apologies, I wasn't trying to be inaccurate but quick. However, Karen is right but my last post was pretty inaccurate. I should have posted a news link. I did read some articles about his case. However, what you wrote is accurate.

Thanks for the info on NHS.

Adastra · Jun 26, 2006

The point of him taking his case to appeal was that the Trust had written a policy banning male clinical staff from carrying out procedures on a female patient alone. They had made no provision for equal treatment of staff. The reason he won is that the Trust should have created a policy which was about the patient's choice. The patient should and must be given the opportunity to choose who they want to perform intimate procedures.

As a nurse I always gained consent and asked the patient if they were happy for me to proceed regardless of whether they were a man or woman.

As a patient, I know I would rather have a woman perform intimate procedures on me. I have heard female patients state they had felt violated after these procedures were performed by male staff, but felt powerless to refuse, so patient choice is paramount.

A while ago, I was involved in the disciplinary hearing of a student who was eventually removed from training for the sexual assault of a female patient. Whilst the patient was happy with the outcome, she would not allow the police to take it further and would not give evidence. He was removed from his course and barred from training as a nurse, but as student nurses were no longer part of th professional register, he could not be permanently struck off. In the recent case, the Trust may have been acting from the view that sexual predators are more likely to be men and more likely to enter professions where they will have access to vulnerable women. Whilst I can see their point of view, I can also see that "tarring everyone with the same brush" is pretty diabolical and that is why consent and patient choice is so important.

As for the NHS, the lies that have been told regarding levels of clinical staff improving are unbelievable. I have worked recently in nurse education and in strategic management. As a result I left and will never return to the NHS. The SHA I worked for managed to waste £14million on consultation for a new hospital. They were paying about 30 contract staff an average of £14,000 a year even though they had left. They referred to registered nurses as idiots :madface: quite openly and believed we could all be replaced with HCAs as we were a drain on resources. The happily regraded all of us who were new (an nurses, coincidentally) using agenda for change. We came into work on the Monday and were handed letters by HR personnel, who had decided what grade they thought we should be on. There was no process followed or no job matching. We were all just downgraded.

I'm happily away from it now and working part-time whilst I set up my own business.