How long should it take for a nurse to respond to a button call?

Angiebaby01 · Mar 20, 2018

I understand why such a question would be asked especially when concerned with a loved one. Most facilities set a time expectation within 2-3 minutes and that is to satisfy the customer service aspect of it. Now personally I think that nursing staff should treat each call as if a life is depending on it because that can very well be the case and I have learned this through experience. As a new nurse I can recall a patient putting his call light on...now this was during change of shift, so everyone treated the call light as though it was "white noise." It had only been ringing for about 2 minutes when finally I can hear the patient yelling, "Nurse Help!" I ran in to find the patient rapidly deteriorating due to fluid overload. He had trouble breathing and was retaining an insanely large amount of fluid! Thank God that he was able to yell for help, but just think what would be the scenario if he couldn't and his only way to communicate that he was in trouble was with his call button?!

allnurses Guide · Mar 20, 2018

It depends on the unit, how many patients your nurse has been assigned to, how often you hit the call button for nonurgent issues and how many patient care techs are on the floor. There is no firm answer. Some nights I could answer almost immediately. Other nights I had some very sick patients who were close to dying and I was not immediately available to answer call lights.

Wuzzie · Mar 20, 2018

Dear Sir/Madam who is reading this.
I am a certain patient's relative and I am wondering how long should a nurse take to respond to a patients call at night time and in day time. If anyone can answer my questions, please help me. If you can I thank you for answering my question.

The only answer to this is "it depends". You are not going to get what you want here.

Lim Tian · Mar 22, 2018

I asked this questions as at that time, the nurses took 13 minutes for them to respond and what made me a little mad was when two to three nurses went past the ward even though she pressed the button for help which nearly led to alot of problems for her. She is an elderly patient at an age of 79 and she nearly fainted from morphine overdose as some doctor( I did not see that time) told her to press everytime she felt pain. At that time the doctors could not confirm whether it is morphine overdose or some complications at that time. At that time it was her first time using the call button.

Lim Tian · Mar 22, 2018

Lastly, that time she was the only one to press the call button.

Trauma Columnist · Mar 22, 2018

I'm sorry but we can't help you with this issue. If you are unhappy with your relatives hospital experience, please contact patient relations.