Trainee Nurses To Look After Patients On Wards

[Gromit]

// 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?

[woofgang]

My experience of two local general hospitals is that too posh to wash applies more to general than specialist wards. When my DH was on highly specialised wards, the nurses went to great trouble to keep him clean and comfortable and were very helpful and supportive when I wanted to do personal things for him.
On more general wards in a different hospital no one gave a damn.

[ummmm]

I agree 100% woof.

[MadMen]

Eh? I'm confused.

My younger sister is a student nurse and, from what she says, she does this anyway?

[LazyGun]

I think the findings of the mid-staffs review were that a narrow focus on chasing targets, whilst at the same time making large cuts in the finances of the hospital in order to meet the targets set by Monitor to achieve Foundation Trust status were what underpinned much of what went wrong in Mid-Staffs.

That cannot be the only problem though; the way some of the patients on the wards were treated was truly appalling, and it appears that the patients were forgotten or became secondary to doing the business of the system. It does not stop just at nursing care either; There was a tolerance of poor standards at clinician level.

I have lost track now of how much exposure to hands on care and nursing student nurses within the system get nowadays. It seems to me though that many of the Professions Aliied to Medicine have attempted to confer additional respectability upon their Profession, by moving to graduate-only entry for example, and that was and is a mistake, IMO. Many of the disciplines should have a substantial vocational element contained within them, so that candidates properly understand what the job requires.

Re-introducing a vocational element by having student nurses work as supervised health care assistants for 1 year within their overall training programme strikes me as being a good thing...

And if you are interested, a link to the executive summary of the findings of the mid-staffs enquiry - it makes for harrowing reading....

http://www.midstaffspublicinquiry.com/sites/default/files/report/Executive%20summary.pdf

[atalanta]

There are plenty of professions which demand a year's experience before allowing people to undertake the graduate or post-graduate training. A year's experience proves commitment, and makes sure that when the students start the formal training, they have the basic information and vocabulary to know what the tutors are talking about. Also, they know exactly what they are getting into, and are less likely to drop out and waste their place on the course.

[emmie]

you don't need a degree to wash and look after a patient, you need empathy and common sense. Yes it's about time someone got off the fence about the lack of care from nursing staff in our hospitals, if you haven't witnessed it, suggest go into one and find out. I have endless times, for myself and indeed any number of friends, and elderly relatives.

[emmie]

one other thing, make sure they have a decent command of English, having witnessed a near catastrophe because the nurse on duty didn't seem to understand much of what she was required to do and almost gave the relative wrong dose of medicine and gave her some food, which was also wrong..

[anneasquith]

the government and the health minister should be ashamed of themselves. it takes hundreds of patients to die before anyone recognises that the nurse training of today is totally inadequate to deal with patients needs.

[emmie]

ann,
not so much the nursing staff causing death of patients, but the idiocy of target related quotas, get them in, fix em up, then shove em out the door mentality, seen it many times, and it just doesn't work. It costs more in the long term, the patient is home too early from his/her op, treatment, they get home, no one there to care for them probably, then back to hospital because it takes time to recuperate from said op/treatment and if that isn't allowed under the shove em out the door quotas, then you have a revolving door situation, so go back to hospital, catch an infection and perhaps pass away. Elderly can be at risk as we know, so the Staffordshire way wasn't all about the nurses, but the whole ethos of treatment.

[woofgang]

Occupational therapy is a degree course but in the first term, students go into hospitals for a short placement to ensure that they can hack it and of the three year degree course, a year is spent in hospitals working at the sharp end.

[Gavmacp]

It would appear to be blaming nurses for a catalogue of failures.
Basic nursing care was drummed into me as a student nurse. But if you do not have the time to give it then of course you cut corners.
The NHS is a complex beast with people making decisions without looking at the bigger picture.
When I worked on the wards we used to have our own cleaning staff. They were conscientious, hard working and good. Then some idiot thought it could be done cheaper by the private sector. I believe this has contributed to the infection rates!

[Eve]

I've had a number of hospital stays in different wards. On one ward most of the general care was done by auxiliaries, obs etc... One was asked if she had ever thought of going on to be a nurse but she said she enjoyed the patient care aspect and would lose that as a nurse as so much of what they do is paperwork.

On another, more acute ward, there didn't seem to be auxiliaries as such, only really Sodexo staff coming round with food and the tea trolley, nurses were doing the obs, meds etc...

I'm very glad I could fend for myself I that it took me going out and actively trying to find someone who could provide me with something like a clean towel or hospital gown so I could go and get cleaned up.

I had one episode when I had an accident and had to ask two nurses (the first one forgot as she was busy - she did apologise) and sit by my bed until someone came along to help (I'd gathered all the bedding up for them myself) to get some clean bedstuff. I worry for people not so able to be proactive though on ward it sounded like some wards were more for people who did not need a lot of personal care.

I think personal care is something that should be drummed in from the start, make sure that people are suitable for the job. I used to do a lot of voluntary work, especially with the severely disabled in a residential setting where, back then, a lot of personal care was undertaken by volunteers - I hear they have clamped down a lot on that now. It's not difficult but requires sensitivity and other characteristics and is not for all, I think it could put people off who don't deem it part of the job which could only be a good thing. Let the carers care and those with a degree and bad attitude go do something else.

[society]

"This is a great idea. There are too many newly qualified nurses who think that the basics are beneath them. "

Best Answer

[emmie]

from personal experience i have seen nurses completely ignore patients, even when that person was in great distress, they should be ashamed of themselves for that alone. Perhaps one is too busy, but also from experience they are quite happy standing around work stations chatting whilst buzzers are going. Not all are like this, but many are, and you can't teach caring, you either have it or you don't. If it's just a job then they are in the wrong place. I couldn't begin to tell you about the useless bloody nurses in the private sector, i would be here all night.

[Gavmacp]

I have worked with newly qualified nurses who talk about caring, dignity and respect. They are quite eloquent in their discussion.
BUT when you stand back and watch them it is a different matter!

[boxtops]

I think in principle it's a good idea. It means that would-be nurses have to spend time actually caring for patients before they go in for the degree course to get their nursing qualifications. I know the attrition rate for nursing students at our local nursing university - it's scary how much public money gets wasted each year on people who start the course then drop out partway through. The trusts sponsor these students, the wider NHS pays their fees. From another perspective, a year in practice (not necessarily on the wards though, there are plenty of other work-based locations) sounds like a really good idea.

[boxtops]

Madmen, we're not talking about placements during the training, this is about hands-on experience as an HCA before you apply for the pre-reg programme.

[woofgang]

em10, My experience of our local private hospital is that the nursing care, in many departments is excellent I can't speak about all departments because we didn't need all of them...mind you the reception folk are lovely, the pharmacy went above and beyond what you could hope for to care for my husband. Even the car park attendants are helpful and caring.
Nurses, via the RCN have done this to themselves. They reinvented themselves around 15 years ago, maybe more. I watched it happen, the NHS wasn't allowed to intervene by the Labour government because the the RCN brought over a very clever American, Beverley Malone, to be their general sec. Her brief was to raise the profile of nursing and to make it more "important" and she did it. Modern Matrons and Community Matrons became the buzz and PCT's were required to train them and employ them irregardless of budget or need. That was the beginning of too posh to wash.
So far as cleaning goes, I had plentiful experience of two local hospitals, both of whom use private catering cleaning and hotel services. In one the food is good, the porters plentiful and helpful, and the public spaces immaculate, The other is filthy, the food is swill, and the staff are surly. Use of private contractors has nothing to do with it. Hospitals set and monitor their own contracts.

[emmie]

the one he was in was hopeless, it shouldn't have been, but it was. Nursing staff awful, uncaring and most had poor command of English, senior consultant was a poor excuse for a human being, let alone a doctor.