News stories of Interest

[stormforce]

Firstly, BBC news reports that NHS managers numbers have risen to 45,000 over the past year, and during the same period nursing and midwifery posts have been reduced by 2%

Go figure http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8587122.stm

Also reported is that NHS England have presented proposed spending cuts to the government with the aim of saving up to £20 billion by 2010

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8590710.stm

Now I am a strong advocate of the National Health Service but I am concerned about the sustainability of a quality service when faced with such proposals. I understand the need for management in the NHS I really do, but increased managers when the numbers of clinical staff are being reduced I struggle to understand.

Can you imagine going into a restaurant to be told that because of cutbacks your waitress was serving twice the number of tables that day and it may well be that you would have to wait just that little bit longer for service, you'd not go there again would you and yet I fear that this is what we are asking our patients to do, with their health which is far more important than dining out, and without the choice of seeking a better service elsewhere.

I'm not sure what the answer is but I truly am concerned about what this means for our poor patients.

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

As well as the poor patient it will also fall on the poor nursing staff and as the media likes to blame the nurses for everything I am sure we will see an increase in the media blame.

Sad all around

[JDZ344]

We're just going to have another Mid Staffs situation....not enough nurses/funding to even deliver the basic care!

I understand that the NHS doesn't have a bottomless pot- but people are suffering because we can't afford to pay for enough staff to look after them, and it's sad.

[iNurseUK, RN]

A story from the Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1261457/Dying-hospital-patient-phoned-switchboard-begging-drink-nurses-said-No.html

Shocking if true but I tend to be a tad sceptical of tales in this particular newspaper.

[XB9S, BSN, MSN, EdD, RN, APN]

I agree with you about the source of the story, however it does say that she was sacked from the hospital at the end of the story. Doing a google search for this nurse says that the NMC is investigating the allegations

Terrible for that poor man and his family, whatever the outcome

[Fiona59]

It made me wonder about a couple of things.

If it was a "routine chest infection" why couldn't he walk to the sink and get himself a drink (ok all start flaming me) but nowhere in the article did it say he was bedbound.

The article also stated his condition wasn't life threatening but the nurses were instructed to keep "close tabs on him". What was the rationale behind this???

Every story has three sides. The families, the nurse involved, and the actual events (which we will never know because we weren't there)

[JDZ344]

It made me wonder about a couple of things.

If it was a "routine chest infection" why couldn't he walk to the sink and get himself a drink (ok all start flaming me) but nowhere in the article did it say he was bedbound.

The article also stated his condition wasn't life threatening but the nurses were instructed to keep "close tabs on him". What was the rationale behind this???

Every story has three sides. The families, the nurse involved, and the actual events (which we will never know because we weren't there)

It did say he was on O2 and IVABs...maybe too wired up? Plus, our hospital only has drining water in the kitchen, the ward sinks are not to be used for drinking from, so maybe this was the situation here? Also possible that the only sink was in the bathroom and he was too weak to walk without the oxygen....I don't know obviously, I am just throwing ideas out here!

As you say, we will never know what happened, because we were not there.