Marnie_C

Hello all, I am new to this forum - I am a UK nurse working in a mixture of areas. Nearly every other shift I do at the moment is short staffed with only 2 nurses caring for 16 specilist palliative care patients with complex symptoms and these are day shifts! We work 14 hours and are not able to go safely on break as 2 nurses are needed on the ward at a time. I feel conpletely run down with it and when I have gone to managment their reply has been...well I don't get a break either. They do 8 hours of clerical work and therefore feel the comparison is off slightly! The question I wish to ask is, where do we stand if we make mistakes on these shifts? Luckily I have not yet made any but we have been sent a lot of emails recently mentioning the increase in drug errors...no wonder! I feel completely undervalued - us nurses never ever get thanked for picking up the slack and it is totally draining me. Many thanks for any input From a very burnt out nurse Marnie