"Confessions of a nurse: where are the NMC in all this?"

I as well as my colleagues have worked far too many hours without breaks, meals or toilet stops. The middle management sorts, who have very little clinical experience, have no real idea what is going on and work day to day walking from meeting to meeting with their air of self-importance.

The NMC don't seem to do anything at all. They publish some glossy leaflets saying what we must do, seemingly strike off nurses very easily (further reducing staffing levels) whereas a doctor who's canulated the wrong blood vessel or administered the wrong medication may suffer a suspension or their colleagues support the medic and rally around them. A nurse often stands alone when an error has occured.

We pay the NMC a king's ransom every year, for what?

They don't improve nursing staff levels, don't lobby for any increases in staff so we can provide the care we all want to provide to the thousands of patients we see every week. They just seem to beat us with a stick when we do wrong, without questioning why something occured in the first place.

Why was there no word from the NMC on the Dispatches programme (Confessions of a nurse)? The RCN seemed to care about the lack of support and lack of staff in nhs wards, they're a union not the body who sets standards...about time NMC stepped up to the plate and help the people who pay them.

The NHS is a great service and I for one have seen the service put under more and more pressure year after year with no let up. Staffing levels seem to be decided arbitrarily or based on some outdated study from the 1980's where a night shift is considered safely staffed if there are 2 qualifieds with one NA. Codswallop. Some nursing "academic" (and i use the term with tongue in cheek) should re-look at the important issues and not fluffy, touchy-feely rubbish akin to "the patient and essential oils...an in depth study into reflexology and reiki".

Wow....this is cathartic....i feel like i can now work another 12 hour shift with no break!