Whisper

The treatment seems incredulous to me. Totally over the top, but maybe thats a difference between the US and UK. We have enough trouble trying to restrain violent patients, and the rings we have to jump through to arrange that let alon a co operative patient. If this had happened in the UK the news papers would have been full of it, and very nurse would have yet more DOL training to attend.

My commute is just under an hour each way. I meant to only do it for 6 months then move or get a job closer to home..... that was over 10 years ago. I like the break between work and home. Helps to leave work issues there

http://www.patientopinion.org.uk/default.aspx was the site they mentioned on the dispatches show, I found some really great comments about my Trust.... and ignored all the bad ones :)

I thought the dispatches programme was not as bad as it could have been... They seem to agree that if nurses had fewer patients to look after we'd be able to do a better job!! Which seems to point the fingers for poor care back at the managers. But overall it seemed to be more 'patients moaning about staff' rather than confessions of nurses. I don't get on the internet much any more (credit crunch and all :)) but after this show I did look my Trust up on the patient opinion website...

I've had my blood taken once or twice1 but would have to be unconscious for an IO!.... or a bed bath

Students taking charge of a ward?! I can't ever see that happening again. not as they are 'supernumery' whisper But an interesting aside, i've just been on youtube to look up intaosseous needle insertion, and US paramedics, and the UK army practice such skills on each other!!! bed baths are one thing, an IO needle or drill is another thing entirely

I'd never heard of google scholar before, but its brilliant found loads of articles. Thanks

I work in a tertiary referal centre, a huge trust with two major hospitals, and outlying cottage hospitals. we can't catheterise men, unless we have been on a course, and to get on the course is a nightmare. Despite the hospital being built (at least the main building) in the '60's we have a lot of victorian attituides, the pillows for instance, despite the lack of sand all have to face the same way, away from windows and doors... only now we say it is for the ward to look tidy!!!

Thanks I tried that just now, no joy. So I've emailed the RCN its frustrating as I can get to most of the site just when I get to the FAST part ovid sp won't let me in. I guess it is a sign I should not be lazy and trawl all the databases my self!!

Has anyone else had difficulties using the FAST option on the RCN website http://www.rcn.org.uk/elibrary it keeps asking for a username and password and my RCN number won't work, just wondered if it was something really blonde like needing to register for that separately? I can't find an idiots guide on their site, and i thought everyone on here would be used to me asking dumb questions by now. So any advice or suggestions? Please

Its interesting how much regional variation has cropped up, even with in the UK, some trust seem to have a taken extending nurses roles much further than others. My last shift I was moved wards due to a bedding crisis, I ended up 'baby sitting' ( the bed managers words not mine) a twenty bedded ward, my self and an AN. My charge nurse apologised before sending me, I went there expecting the worst..... all the patients had transport booked or due for d/c next day back to care home. But it was fantastic, did 'proper' nursing (some one else had done all the planning) i was very tired but had a great day. The Staff nurse who took over from me on nights, laughed at how little i knew though about some of the patients condition, or when my pronunciation was off. She'd trained a good while ago, and her general knowledge was much better than mine, where as my knowledge base is very specific to where I work, I didn't like to tell her that I'd had to google many of the conditions, because I'd never come across them before. If what she said was true, about nurses being trained to work any where and being able to do a basic role on any ward, then we need to go back to the old system, because every time we move i feel like a fish out of water, the last time i moved i went to ortho, and ordered an air matress for a patient with a fractured NOF!!! Whisper ps, found out about ot using the matress just after i'd inflated on an empty bed, so nobody was harmed, except my ego

I had a house mate when I did my training, that had very poor personal hygiene, did a double shift, came home and slept in her uniform and went back and did another double the next day in the same uniform!! When myself and other house mates raised concerns with the univeristy we were acused of bullying and had to prove our characters, the student in question passed her course, and now works in a department I avoid and would not let any of my family attened, I know she's been taken to task a few times, but the trust is tied because they are afraid of getting sued (but they do receive complaints about her cleanliness from patients). 'Failure to Fail', puts the responsibility on the ward staff and mentors, but without university support, the de-skilling and general spiral downwards seem set to continue!

I 've just got back from a holiday in America, visiting a friend who I trained with. She has a much more extended practical skills list than i'll ever be able to achive, yet whilst i've stayed in the UK I've clocked up a lot of uni and in house courses, mentorship venepuncture facilitator etc. Some of my 'skills' are not things I ever wanted to learn, or a role I previously associated with nursing, but unfortunately they have become' necessary for my job'... i never wanted to host MDT meetings to persuade spocial services to find a package of care that wasted three hours of my shift, i never once wanted to be part security guard lokcing away property that has to be signed in by two RN and then escorted down to security, ( roughly a half an hour job) We now have six forms to complete one in triplicate if a patient dies, i often wish i could be left to do my job, without the paper work and '' new roles'' I'm sure I'd be ble to learn new clinical skills... I've fine with defibs, or looking after patients with tracheostomy or chest tube or pacing wires, tpn or ng feeds, takes me a little time to remeber how to work the machine, but i've never inserted one, or had the opportunity to learn, heck since i qualified i think i've catheterised about five patients!!! And to go on the course to learn how to catheterise men... you need to have 'reasonable experience'... so thats one course i don't think i'll be going on! stepping off my soap box now, students are often eager to learn the 'essential skills' but perhaps retention of newly qualifed nurses is so low, because once you qualify the quality time for care just vanishes in a wave a paper work and phone calls?

We still have some IVs that nurses don't give, the policy is for medical staff to administer them only... although nine times out of ten nursing staff have to prepare the drugs. Some of them seem daft, that nurses can hang nasty drugs like amiodarone and Mg, but can't give short synacten!

I can't believe that this was allowed to happen, I work with students and train new staff nurses to give IVs, third year students we'll let mix and draw up drugs under supervision, even set the IVAC, but they are not allowed to touch, a patients venflon. You have to be qualified at least six months before you can start the iv pack. We store un diluted K+ on the ward, but it is kept in our CD cupboard, and even that is now in a small bag which does need further dilluitng, not the old style glass vials we used to have. It seems unbelieveable that such a mistake could happen. Even when we've been really busy, I've never left a student mixing an IV and they all know they can't give them. My trust had an incident with K+ years ago and spent a fortune on new pumps, because a student, removed an Iv bag from a pump without closing the gate, and the bag ran through stat, patient very ill and spent weeks in CICU. Now all our pumps lock off when ever you open the door even if you close the gate. I'm sure Liverpool will have serious training issues to attend to.