When are ward nurses going to surgically remove themselves from the nurses' station and increase their time with the patients?

When is someone going to count the time spent? Just 'at the station' and 'not at the station' would be telling enough. So long as the nurses didn't know in advance and take it into their heads to get into some gaming. But that was another blog...

The recent stay of a friend of mine in a private hospital was very different to my mother-in-law's on an elderly ward. OK, so elderly care is pretty much near the bottom of the heap, just before mental health and learning difficulties, I'd say, but her experience was poor. For a start, what she needed was specialist orthopaedic input, not an elderly ward. She's a pretty tough old bird, and not demented or dehydrated or short of hearing or without family and friends. And she could have done without the stress of being surrounded by people who generally were all of the above, especially demented. Those poor people need care but those of sound mind find it very wearing to be in close vicinity indefinitely.

But what was worse was the lack of attention paid by nurses to patients. Including the four of six in her bay who died during her stay. So I guess their condition could possibly have merited more attention in what turned out to be the last days of their lives? The nurses would be very careful not to allow patients to catch their eye, patients were kept waiting for the toilet, not helped with food. All the stuff on the programmes. My mother-in-law did well to recover.

Whereas my friend's private hospital had no nurses' station. And nurses were not only very pleasant, but they spent a little time with her. Not a lot. But each time they came in for checks they would chat for maybe five minutes. And it made a difference. They listened when she said she wanted to use the commode instead of those puny bed pans that overflow. And when her feet were so cold she couldn't sleep they listened and gave her some little 'star wars' socks. And she came away thinking 'this really is what it should be like'. More dismantling of the NHS please...

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