"The hard work of an epic nurse who does more than she needs to"

Upon being admitted in to hospital for bowel problems and being moved into Ward B12 from SAU, I was greeted by an epic nurse by the name of Denise who instantly put me at ease while greeting me with a smile and a joke.

Over my time spent on the ward (10 days), every time she was on shift she would put 110% in to her work and always made sure everyone she spoke with or cared for was done so with top quality of care and understanding and she was always on the move getting very little time to catch her breath as at times it looked like she was the only one around.

With the contingency beds being in the ward there is more work, as having five people in a four-person ward is, in my opinion, stupid and disgraceful. How is the person in the extra bed meant to get the privacy and care they are meant to get when they are stuck in between two other beds? And only having a door bell as an emergency call button that was absolutely useless and redundant as most of the agency staff who worked the night shift didn’t have a clue what they were hearing. It took someone else to call their attention for that person in the extra bed.

The space is not big enough, if there was a true emergency as a crash cart and staff would not be able to get around the bed safely to do their jobs as two beds were basically two feet apart, which is ridiculous giving it is a heath care facility.

I personally don’t know who is to blame for the idea of adding extra beds to a four-bed room, but with that being said the NHS staff who are working for the hospital are all great at what they do for the most part, but in my view the agency staff just didn’t seem to care as much and just seemed very distant and bossy to me.

Despite all I have put above, I truly believe that the people who work for the NHS day in and day out do not get the respect and recognition that they deserve, and I would like to once again shout out who I feel was the most caring and truly honest worker who even after her shift is over will helped a patient with whatever they need and that is a very rare commodity and once again her name is Denise, who is an auxiliary nurse, and one of the strongest people on that team in Ward B12. But major respect to all the other nurses who work on the ward and in the hospital in general.