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?

[theshedman]

Why can't it just be part of their normal nursing training as it was in the past before they got the health care assistants in to assist as it was at the start. Nurses used to always do this type of work as part of their normal duties. Seems to be too much paperwork these days and not then having the time to give to looking after patients.

[Gromit]

Is "too posh to wash" really a nationwide problem? There seems to be a handful of bad hospitals, and that is down to poor management rather than poor nursing. If it is the nurse's job to feed and wash the patients and they are not doing it then they should be dismissed or retrained. But if there are not enough nurses on shift to have time to do their work, then the seniors should be removed.

[cazzz1975]

do we think a year on wards will change their attitude though? surely once qualified they will leave the washing and feeding to the healthcare assistants?

[mrs_overall]

cazzz, I don't think so. Maybe for some, but not for all.
It is amazing how something as simple as being washed can perk a patient up and any nurse worth her salt would gain satisfaction from realising this

[EvianBaby]

They might Caz, that's what tends to happen in any job. You start with the crap stuff and move up.

But at least you've had experience of the crap stuff and understand how important the menial tasks actually are.

[EvianBaby]

And then of course if there's an occasion when someone else isn't there to do the crap stuff then at least you know how to do it yourself, rather than just pretending it's not there.

[mrs_overall]

Again, only from my experience, in intensive care and HDU there are no health care assistants and all the menial tasks are done by nurses

[vakayu]

Well said mrs O totally agree the caring aspect of nursing has been lost,medical knowledge of course is very important but not to the detriment of patients basic needs,as you say even being offered washing facilities or help to wash is a booster to someone who is ill and feeling down anyway,dignity as much as possible should be maintained,sorry you had a miserable experience in hospital mrs O.

[rowanwitch]

and at least they will have some insight into what it takes to deliver proper care. I think it's an acknowledgment that the current system went too far. And it will almost certainly make some of the 'management focussed trainees' think about their choice.

[EvianBaby]

I guess it's different in certain areas Mrs O. I know from my stays in hospital there were HCA's taking blood pressure, temp, etc and when I needed help to get out of bed and wash it was an HCA standing in the shower room with me.

The most basic task the nurses did was hand out meds, which they often forgot to do.

[ummmm]

Cazzz...what it will do is weed out nurses that realise that the job just isn't for them. So hopefully all qualified nurses will be nurses because that's their vocation.

[Connemmara]

well my brother was in intensive care last year and of course I did not take note of visiting times but was let in for a few seconds and none of the nurses took one jot note of me (which was fine) because they were caring for their patients so willingly - it was one to one care - all running around with basins - for the seconds I was there it was a mad house caring for the intensively ill.

[B00]

Im still baffled why washing, looking after basic needs and treating a patient like a human being needs "training"

[cazzz1975]

my daughters friend want to be a nurse, her reasons a) she can meet doctors b) "it looks exciting, like on holby"

[murraymints]

It was reported on telly this morning as 3 months on wards before training starts...good idea will weed out those who cannot care....having spent the best part of 9 months in various hospitals I concur with Mrs O...

[cazzz1975]

I agree with that ummm, there is a high drop out rate in nurse training, im not sure if that is attributed to too much academic work or the reality of nursing

[ummmm]

B00, some nurses simply do not care.

[TheOtherHalf]

Some do care. When my MIL was in Bridlington Hospital, one of the nurses stayed over her shift time and washed my MIL hair and put rollers in for her and when we saw her on the evening her hair looked lovely, better than her normal hairdresser, and she had really perked up and was so excited about telling us all about this. I thanked the nurse and she said that she had felt so sad looking at my MIL in such a state with hair unwashed for over a week etc and she didnt know she was related to me so wasnt trying to impress me

[B00]

Ahhh, thats lovely TOH.

That's what I mean, why it is beyond the realms to simply brush someone's hair for them?

And I hate to sound critical, but did it not cross your mind to do it for your MIL yourself?

[ummmm]

Her hair had gone unwashed for a week which suggest that many don't care!