"Some staff are busier than others"

I have been visiting a relative in hospital frequently recently. Very mixed standard of nurses.

Day nurses: no complaints, but the temporary night nurses seemed lacking in patient knowledge.

I had occasion to watch some nurses washing their hands at a sink in a bay with some elderly patients who had contracted a sickness and diarrhoea bug. They had gloves on, removed the gloves washed their hands, dried them on paper towels and then turned the taps off with their hands. Thus touching the dirty taps again. Basic common sense I thought.

Also the overworked national health workers (and yes i know there are a lot)...

But I was visiting, and heard a man who came to mend the same sink chatting to a lady working on the ward for at least 20 mins before mending the sink. Loud social chit-chat including the man claiming to be so busy that he couldnt mend the sink the previous day as they were so terribly busy. He appararently had other jobs lined up after this one.

Like I said the day nurses seem to be on the ball but the night staff seemed lackadaisical and more interested in social chat than getting things done. My relative asked for badly needed pain relief and was kept waiting for a lot longer that he should have and said that he longed for the day staff to come back on.

Do not wish to identify myself as relative is still in. Good and bad in any profession and i alway usually defend health workers - i used to be one. But basic lack of hygiene and loud personal conversations and laughing near very ill people should not be the image visitors are left with.