NHS unfair treatment of employees

[liz123]

Lets just say that if you earn less than £20,000 a year, you will be the one who is put through the mill and branded a criminal. I went up against a nurse earlier this year and ended up being suspended. Although i was allowed to return to work and the disciplinary would as I was told be removed from my record after a year, I told them what I thought and that they should keep a closer eye on their staff. You are also not allowed to say what you think as then you just get branded as being difficult and it was this which lead to my suspension. Also the fact that I called this woman a few names and brought into question her professional practice. She was known as being incompetent but because she was a nurse no one had to say anything! So, a few other children had to wait longer for treatment because she was too idle to send sample results to the hospital consultant on time. If you let them, they will put words in your mouth and break you down into their way of thinking, and the NHS do have a way. Lets face it, they think they're covering their own backs but Harold Shipman really blew them out of the water!

[Sali]

I'm not sure I fully understand. Are you an HCA and did you take issue with one of the nursing staff? Can HCAs raise IO1s, Incident Reports, on patient safety?

[Night Owl]

Welcome to CAG liz123. You have come to the right place for help and advice.

You have had a bad experience but your reaction shows that you had concerns. You are amongst friends here.

 

Just a few questions.

What is your job?........then we know how to get the right help and advice.

Was there a breach in patient safety?

Did you complete an incident form or report it to a manager/supervisor if there was?

Did you have a representative with you at the disiplinary meeting?

Have you had support for some sort of reflection since the disiplinary to make sense of what happened?

 

So sorry there are so many questions.

 

Good luck

Night Owl

[zippygbr]

I'm not sure I fully understand. Are you an HCA and did you take issue with one of the nursing staff? Can HCAs raise IO1s, Incident Reports, on patient safety?

 

 

yes HCAs can but they have to be justifiable, and sadly

 

1. a few too many HCAs simply 'do not know what they do not know '

 

2. a proportion of HCAs do not appreciate that a reasonable request from any Registered Member of staff should be undertaken

 

3. a proportion of HCAs believe that their length of service makes them more important and /or senior than Reghistered Staff with lesser service ...

 

4. a proportion of HCAs beleive that their opinions on certain topics hold more weight than they can safely be allowed to, this causes tension between HCAs and the accountable Registered Staff.

 

this is without considering the differing levels of service that the members of professional representation organisations ( who are mainly Registered staff despite the RCN having a membership category for HCAs) get vs. the level of service offered by certain trades unions in dealing with issues

[Sali]

Woah, there's more than a hint of arrogance in your response ziggygbr.

 

If that is your attitude I can quite understand how liz123 must feel.

 

It reminds me of visiting my own relatives in hospital and the contempt I was shown if I dared to question the trained medics opinions or decisions. I got to the point where I held back because I thought my relatives were being penalised as a result.

[zippygbr]

Woah, there's more than a hint of arrogance in your response ziggygbr.

 

 

the simple fact is as a registered Practitioner I am accountable not only for my actions but for the actions of assistant grades who report to me on a shift to shift day to day basis.

 

Assistant grade job descriptions always include as the first reporting line above them Any relevant registered Staff even if their line manager / team leader is a band 6 or 7 ...

 

this also ignores the fact that the pre-registration preparation for practice for a registered practitioner runs into many thousands of hours of both theoretical and practical education and results in an award at NQF level 5 or 6 ( except the few NHS ambulance services still training paramedics to the IHCD route when it;s an NQF level 4 award) i.e. DipHE or Degree level at the very least.

 

If that is your attitude I can quite understand how liz123 must feel.

 

It reminds me of visiting my own relatives in hospital and the contempt I was shown if I dared to question the trained medics opinions or decisions. I got to the point where I held back because I thought my relatives were being penalised as a result.

 

Questioning isn't a problem , it the accusatory tone that many relatives and friends use or the default assumption that Ward staff and junior doctors are blocking access to investigations or interventions which may not even be clinically indicated at that time if at all ... especially when such demands are led by USAn consumer literature aiming at selling unnecessary investigation and/or intervention.

 

Equally relatives and friends of patients must respect the confidentiality of their relative/ friends' medical condition and record and not become threatening and /or abusive when a member of staff says that they cannot answer that particular question.

 

decisions to make disclosures which have not been made to the patient are taken extremely seriously and will involve a decision being made by Consultant grade medical staff following a multi disciplinary discussion.

[JonCris]

Of course medical staff & their employers try to frustrate investigation. As someone who has been involved in litigation against the NHS I can vouch that their attempts to cover up their mistakes & shortcomings are often mind boggling.

[Sali]

But questioning does seem to be a problem for many nurses ziggygbr. I was never abusive. I was certainly frustrated by the apparent lack of knowledge, the inertia and apathy. As an example (and I have many) my relative was taking aspirin prior to admission. I knew the reasons. Whilst in hospital my relative developed a DVT for which they were prescribed warfarin. I noted that the aspirin had not been stopped. I asked one of the trained nurses why this would be. She shrugged. I asked the next day and the next. Eventually the aspirin was stopped. This was pretty much the way things were. Without offering an explanation I can only wonder at the competence (and I note all the training and qualifications you have listed) of those caring for my relative.

[JonCris]

You can take both aspirin & warfarin at the same time it depends on the blood levels

[zippygbr]

You can take both aspirin & warfarin at the same time it depends on the blood levels

 

and the clinical indications for both are not exclusive...

 

and neither contraindicates the other , they work in different places of the clotting cascade ...

[Sali]

So, when I asked the question, I didn't expect a shrug from a trained nurse and I didn't expect to have to ask the question multiple times, then the aspirn to be stopped without any explanation from nurse or doctor. If it was the right thing to do it should have been done sooner. If it was the wrong thing to do, it shouldn't have been done just because I persistently asked the question. This and many other incidents left me without confidence in the medical staff.

[NurseAnne]

Sali as a nurse I often jump right on stuff like that...asking a doc if he wants to review a patients drug chart because certain things are prescribed together etc etc. It usually takes about 3 days to sort out, so overwhelmed with jobs are the docs and nurses. As a trained nurse I have so many patients that it is completely impossible to keep on top of everything that is happening with them. I will make a mental note of anything a relative tells me and add it to the list of jobs depending on where it is on the priority scale (because they know the patient better) but I ain't stopping for more than two seconds to talk about it since I can barely get to my patients at all during the time allowed.

 

But aspirin can be given on occasion with warfarin, depends on the INR. When the INR changed maybe they decided to stop it.

 

Zippy makes good points about HCA's not knowing what they do not know. I used to be an HCA and I never understood why the nurses did the things that they did, when they did, whilst not tending to other things that *I* thought were the most important right away. I understand now.

[liz123]

yes HCAs can but they have to be justifiable, and sadly

 

1. a few too many HCAs simply 'do not know what they do not know '

 

2. a proportion of HCAs do not appreciate that a reasonable request from any Registered Member of staff should be undertaken

 

3. a proportion of HCAs believe that their length of service makes them more important and /or senior than Reghistered Staff with lesser service ...

 

4. a proportion of HCAs beleive that their opinions on certain topics hold more weight than they can safely be allowed to, this causes tension between HCAs and the accountable Registered Staff.

 

this is without considering the differing levels of service that the members of professional representation organisations ( who are mainly Registered staff despite the RCN having a membership category for HCAs) get vs. the level of service offered by certain trades unions in dealing with issues

 

 

 

Well it's a good job I wasn't a HCA, you just assummed I was so clearly you could level a really misguided and insulting argument at HCA's. What did you do that for? Why do you assume HCA's don't follow instructions from nurses and superiors? Do you think they are all lackies or something who need to be told what to do? The woman I was talking about was also off sick for four weeks, two weeks after she started with us so to begin with, we were all more experienced than her but she didn't help herself by being off for so long. So you need to factor 'registered' staff competencies in to you little argument too before you begin typing.

[Night Owl]

Welcome back liz123 - it's been a long time.

I hope you got things sorted.