News3 mins ago
Trainee Nurses To Look After Patients On Wards
// Nurses will spend a year on wards feeding and washing patients before they can qualify, under plans to be announced on Tuesday to ensure compassion in hospitals.
Ministers believe that a return to basic nursing is crucial following the Mid Staffordshire scandal and criticism that some graduate nurses are “too posh to wash”.
In future, trainees will have to pass a year as a health care assistant, looking after patients’ basic needs, rather than medical treatment.
On Monday night, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, said: “Frontline, hands-on caring experience and values need to be equal with academic training. //
The Mid-Staff Scandal was caused by chasing targets and 'qualified' nurses not having time to 'care'.
I am sure that the answer to the poor quality of care at Mid Staffs is not to replace nurses with unqualified students.
Call me cynical, but this looks like just an opportunity to get some cheap labour into hospitals (i am assuming the students will not get the same pay as a proper nurse). Will there be extra money to train them? I doubt it. A cynical way of saving money and not addressing the real scandal of the hundreds of premature deaths of patients badly cared for.
Anyone think this is a good idea?
Ministers believe that a return to basic nursing is crucial following the Mid Staffordshire scandal and criticism that some graduate nurses are “too posh to wash”.
In future, trainees will have to pass a year as a health care assistant, looking after patients’ basic needs, rather than medical treatment.
On Monday night, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, said: “Frontline, hands-on caring experience and values need to be equal with academic training. //
The Mid-Staff Scandal was caused by chasing targets and 'qualified' nurses not having time to 'care'.
I am sure that the answer to the poor quality of care at Mid Staffs is not to replace nurses with unqualified students.
Call me cynical, but this looks like just an opportunity to get some cheap labour into hospitals (i am assuming the students will not get the same pay as a proper nurse). Will there be extra money to train them? I doubt it. A cynical way of saving money and not addressing the real scandal of the hundreds of premature deaths of patients badly cared for.
Anyone think this is a good idea?
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as a nurse, i would just like to point out that washing and feeding patients are NOT "menial tasks". Giving a patient a wash can give you so many clues about them, how they manage at home and make a connection on a human level. In fact to some, these are the most important tasks, rather than menial. Now that nursing is an all graduate profession, people are right to point out it excludes some people who were just born to be nurses.
In the NHS, my motto has always been "the more things change, the more they stay the same" It seems to me that we are just (or need to) moving back to the situation of some years ago where you had RGNs and ENs (greenies) - ENs were less academic and more focussed on nursing tasks and the individual patients, wheeas RGNs did the more complex treatments and had a more of an overview about a ward,rather than individuals.
Anything too complex (ie blood drawing lol) was done by doctors. Even at the beginning of my training in the 90s, it was very rare for nurses to be able to take blood (meaning you had to call an SHO from A and E or their bed if someone needed blood taking in the middle of the night) Further back than that, nurses never even used to give IV drugs, that was the domain of the doctor.
So in summary, the nurse's job has increased a huge amount in recent years, with nurses taking on more and more things that doctors used to do, meaning that some things have had to slip down to healthcare assisstants (like washing and feeding, which as tasks, don't take a lot of skills) However the skill is in knowing when that is important to do, and when you can ask someone else to do it.
In the NHS, my motto has always been "the more things change, the more they stay the same" It seems to me that we are just (or need to) moving back to the situation of some years ago where you had RGNs and ENs (greenies) - ENs were less academic and more focussed on nursing tasks and the individual patients, wheeas RGNs did the more complex treatments and had a more of an overview about a ward,rather than individuals.
Anything too complex (ie blood drawing lol) was done by doctors. Even at the beginning of my training in the 90s, it was very rare for nurses to be able to take blood (meaning you had to call an SHO from A and E or their bed if someone needed blood taking in the middle of the night) Further back than that, nurses never even used to give IV drugs, that was the domain of the doctor.
So in summary, the nurse's job has increased a huge amount in recent years, with nurses taking on more and more things that doctors used to do, meaning that some things have had to slip down to healthcare assisstants (like washing and feeding, which as tasks, don't take a lot of skills) However the skill is in knowing when that is important to do, and when you can ask someone else to do it.
The issues that caused so many tragic deaths in Mid-Staffs are generaly attributed to issues at Board level.
The ludicrous chasing of 'targets' caused by successive goverments who want to run the NHS as though it is Tesco and can be in 'competition' with itself is the root cause of the issues.
If you give a suit a 'target' and base his salary and / or bonus on reaching it, then straight away you have tunnel vision focused entirely on saving money, by any means possible.
Hey presto - short cuts to cheapest resources available, saving money at any and all costs, and an unwillingness to spend money on even essential care requested by qualified medical staff.
It's really not complicated - treat health care like care, not competition, and allow qualified clinicians to dicate what is needed and where, and remove the raft of management that takes up valuable finances, and the NHS starts to improve overnight.
The ludicrous chasing of 'targets' caused by successive goverments who want to run the NHS as though it is Tesco and can be in 'competition' with itself is the root cause of the issues.
If you give a suit a 'target' and base his salary and / or bonus on reaching it, then straight away you have tunnel vision focused entirely on saving money, by any means possible.
Hey presto - short cuts to cheapest resources available, saving money at any and all costs, and an unwillingness to spend money on even essential care requested by qualified medical staff.
It's really not complicated - treat health care like care, not competition, and allow qualified clinicians to dicate what is needed and where, and remove the raft of management that takes up valuable finances, and the NHS starts to improve overnight.
bednobs ie meaning what - I am taking the context that all nurses can NOT draw blood properly. I mean many years ago I had a nurse who had been eating a packet of crisps - never washed her hands and proceeded to draw the blood - couldn't do it - doctor walked down the corridor - two seconds it took him
Ahhh right my apologies sqad, p'raps Snaggles is right, i am a tad grumpy today, you'll all be relieved to hear im going out in a bit, lol.
I dunno, I know it's straying from the point, but I personally couldn't leave a relative of mine with unwashed dirty hair for a week. I'd have taken in dry shampoo and a soft baby brush in to tidy it up a bit for them.
This is not to say that nurses shouldn't do this, they should, as ive said, its basic human care, so basic a 5 year old could do it!
I dunno, I know it's straying from the point, but I personally couldn't leave a relative of mine with unwashed dirty hair for a week. I'd have taken in dry shampoo and a soft baby brush in to tidy it up a bit for them.
This is not to say that nurses shouldn't do this, they should, as ive said, its basic human care, so basic a 5 year old could do it!
mrs overall, i am not working as a nurse anymore, and haven't done since 2007, but have had a lot of hospital stays myself. My answer is yes, there are certainly too many nurses who seem to lack a caring bone in their body, and would frankly scoff in my face if i told them you can learn lots by helping a patient with a wash. With so many things to get through in a day, there is simply not time, so even those who do understand the art of caring wouldn't be able to do it even if they wanted to probably
andy
\\\It's really not complicated - treat health care like care, not competition, and allow qualified clinicians to dicate what is needed and where, and remove the raft of management that takes up valuable finances, and the NHS starts to improve overnight. \\\
and that is not that easy.
Clinicians have a very poor record as "managers" and as far as money allocation is concerned one would soon see"the waving of shrouds" from each and every department.Every doctor feels that his/her claim for more finances is justifiable.
Health Care is not cheap and like the Cyprus Banks the NHS has been hemorrhaging money for decades.......there has to be some sort of control.
\\\It's really not complicated - treat health care like care, not competition, and allow qualified clinicians to dicate what is needed and where, and remove the raft of management that takes up valuable finances, and the NHS starts to improve overnight. \\\
and that is not that easy.
Clinicians have a very poor record as "managers" and as far as money allocation is concerned one would soon see"the waving of shrouds" from each and every department.Every doctor feels that his/her claim for more finances is justifiable.
Health Care is not cheap and like the Cyprus Banks the NHS has been hemorrhaging money for decades.......there has to be some sort of control.
The situation with highly qualified nurses being too posh to wash is exactly what a cousin of mine, who was a senior manager in a North West hospital,predicted when the change to a graduate profession was introduced many years ago.
They are only interested in the medical side of nursing and not the caring side. Years ago, a young girl could go into nursing and be trained on the job, many lacked academic qualifications but had plenty of common sense and eagerness to learn. Our obsession with graduate qualifications, not only in nursing, had meant that many people are unable to do jobs for which they would be very well suited.
Some of us are well able to remember and appreciate teachers who were "qualified through experience" having been brought in during wartime need.
They are only interested in the medical side of nursing and not the caring side. Years ago, a young girl could go into nursing and be trained on the job, many lacked academic qualifications but had plenty of common sense and eagerness to learn. Our obsession with graduate qualifications, not only in nursing, had meant that many people are unable to do jobs for which they would be very well suited.
Some of us are well able to remember and appreciate teachers who were "qualified through experience" having been brought in during wartime need.
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