Frankcah

Check out this link... http://www.pinpoint.ltd.uk/pinpoint5000.html This is the system we use. It is very good (but costly). Based in UK tho.

I work in a secure assessment & treatment evironment. Patients wear their own clothes. We have 4 levels of observation Level1 - Baseline obs - check whereabouts every 30 mins (basic) Level2 - Enhanced obs - check whereabouts once at a random time within a 30 min period Level3 - Within eyesight of staff Level4 - Within arms length of staff We may have to modify parts of levels to suit the patients need by using care plans. Patients are at risk of harming themselves or others. Anyone on level3/4 will have an extra member of staff assigned to them to enable the observations. Observations are recorded on 15 min basis.

Try refining the data u put in. It is a little confusing, eg. "rise in teenage pregnancies 16-18" ??? Surely it should read teenage pregnancies under 16...? If you have access to OVID in your library, check out the searches on there. Fill in the fields, try some combinations of buzz words, follow links etc, you may have more luck tham on your bog standard search engine such as google... Failing that try http://www.dogpile.com, it's a meta search engine which searches other search engines on your behalf. Happy hunting!

All nurses make mistakes from time to time, even vastly experienced nurses. The NMC advocates an open and honest culture especially when it comes to drug errors. The evidence is firm that there was a drug error committed. It happens. As a registered nurse you have accountability for your actions. Don't deny it, don't shift the blame, you will not be struck off the register and it will not count against you in your future. Chalk it up as a learning experience, (ideal for your PREP), and move on! You have already reflected plenty and that is a good thing. You will ensure that your future medicine administrations are as correct as they can possibly be. You may in the future commit further errors (medicine or otherwise), be honest, don't deny it, don't shift the blame...feel guilty, get support and learn from it. I shall now have a triangle of toblerone in your honour!!!

Sorry to read about your non completion of your training. My friend failed in year 3 of his training. After making a few enquiries, he found out that he had enough credits to become an enrolled nurse. Following this he undertook a conversion course to registered nurse. This took place 10 years ago and I don't know the current status on enrolled nurses. It may take you a little while longer to achieve registration, but if this is your aim may be worth it! Good luck

A forensic unit is a unit that deals with people who have committed a crime of some description and instead of recieving a custodial sentence, they are sent to a hospital or other secure setting to recieve treatment, usually under a section of the mental health act. There are very few (if any) units that would call themselves forensic units outright. Rather units would regard themselves as secure units that manage forensic patients. This means that they are not restricting themselves to patients that have had some dealings with the judiciary system. There are basically three levels of security: High Security (Special Hospitals), of which there are three in England; Medium and low security (of which there are many). There are no set stipulations which determine what is medium and what is low, rather what a unit decides to regard themselves according to the security they offer. These units are mainly for mental health and learning disability patients, but watch out for the new mental health act bill which is trying to be passed at the present, which will try to detain people with personality disorders based on their potential risk... Hope this helps

At the unit I work at, we advocate to some of our patients who cut/scratch, using an elastic band around their wrist/arm. When the urge to cut/scratch is there, pull it back and let it snap back on the arm. We have had some successes with this. It does, for some patients, relieve the urge and of course any marks are not permanent.

Learning disability nursing is massive, but unfortunately, I believe it to be perceived as the poorer relation to the big guns such as pschy or general. It does not have the same mass appeal or publicity as other branches and I dont recall ever the LD equivilant of Casualty; Holby; ER... There are so many different areas to the field and it really depends on your personality/experiences/skills as to which area you find the most rewarding and hence the most stimulating. I have worked predominately in challenging behaviours for most of my career but have had stints in profound LD, community, youth services... I love it! We never have 2 days the same, you get to build up relationships with the patients and the team support and comeraderie are great! I am not saying others do not have this, but there are certainly great benefits to being an LD nurse!

Even thought there is a small risk of suffocation with patients in a face down restraint, it is inevitable that it happens occasionally in what is the usual melee to restrain a patient when it is needed. Check out the report of "The Bennett Inquiry" into the death of a man in the UK as a consequence of face down restraint. One of the recommendations of this was that face down restraint should only be carried out for a max of 3 minutes. Face up restraint is as safe as the competence of those carrying out the restraint. I too detest spit, but then again it sure beats being headbutted, punched, kicked, hair pulled, strangled, hung, drawn & quartered... :roll

Fantastic entertainment guys!! This thread is like a soap opera, ...where did I leave my popcorn...:roll

The question is simple, the answer is simple, listen & be supportive to the patient, :kiss

I must agree with psykoRN, there should be a clear and adequate complaints procedure in place which should provide the patient with a forum to make complaints. Of course people will say, "but everyone will be making complaints about the most trivial of things", maybe, but, the parties carrying out any substantiation/investigation should be able to assign the complaint to the most appropriate person to deal with the complaint and therfore take the most appropriate action. Just because someone is a charge nurse does not mean they are untouchable. Your director has a lot to answer for for divulging your name despite the fact that you made the complaint on behalf of a patient in confidence. Also the charge nurse seems to have also adopted what might be interpreted as bullying tactics to yourself. What is to say that if you did inform your charge nurse, that she would not employ the same tactics with your patient. Stop beating yourself up about it, you did the most appropriate thing given the circumstances. You had to make a decision based on what was presented to you. I feel you did the right thing!!

Im a uk nurse, and I must say that mechanical restraint really bothers me. There are methods to restrain people that require less than 4 people (and I presume u mean C & R) which I am very much opposed to. Other methods such as the Studio 3 approach uses methods such as walk around techniques which has many benefits over traditional restraint. It is more dignified. U do not hold people down. U use the patients energy in a more positive way... When people are in a hightened state of arousal, adrenaline is coursing through them and so the best way to is to metabolise (and therefore shorten the duration of the period of anxiety) this through exercise and movement, not holding someone down and sticking a needle in their orifice!!! It is something that has really bothered me in the past, especially when staff feel that decking someone and holding them down is a power thing. Surely this is wrong! I'd appreciate feedback...