"Nurses worth their weight in gold"

My mother was recently admitted in to the accident and emergency department at wishaw general hospital. My mother is very elderly and although independent at home was not able to take care of herself fully while poorly. I was able to come and go and spend time in her room while waiting for her to be transferred to a ward. What an eye opener this was to be on the other side of the waiting room doors. The nurses are fantastic!

So many patients, so many tasks, so much pressure. I had not realised beforehand the severity of illness coming and going through the department and the multitude of conditions. The nurses are dealing with so much pressure for hours on end and never stop. The multi tasking they mange is beyond belief. Switching from emergencies arising before their eyes to management of the sickest patients and then to be taking care of patients stabilised but bedded down for days and the added care this brings is nothing but totally amazing. Compared to other people's 9-5 jobs these nurses deserve nothing more than total respect and support. They worked tirelessly from start to end of shift and without them I ask -  where would we all be?

I feel that they do need more recognition and definitely more support. On transfer to the ward the realisation of what the accident and emergency nurses do was even more evident. The ward nurses seem to have more support and allocated clinical support workers, which I feel would have been a great help to the A&E nurses.

The only clinical support I experienced prior to the ward was when clinical support left empty cardboard basins on the tables of patients and a towel. No assistance given like in the ward, same again with the meals. The only assistance my mother received was from nurses. The clinical support to be honest didn't seem to be allocated to any patient care duties. They spent a lot of time handing out things to patient to manage theirselves, and the rest of the time finding things to wipe down or stock up.

On one occasion I witnessed 3 members of support staff cleaning the same items while having a good old moan about those they work below. I suppose this must be down to not being allowed any of the higher responsibilities or not qualified to carry out other tasks I am not sure but in my 2 days in A&E everything was down to the nurses. Maybe they could come up with a job position for qualified clinical support to work alongside the nurses, who would have more of an understanding of the patients, their clinical history and priority of tasks, and reduce the number of lower grades doing the same lower end tasks. 

Thank you again to the nurses and doctors I had the pleasure of meeting over the 2 days in accident and emergency, thank you for supporting me and my family, thank you for taking care of my mother when we most needed you. And last but not least …. To management, please please support your nurses and give them the same respect they give to all the patients and families, day after day after day.