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Feedback from a member of staff at Northern General

Posted By 5678

"Feedback from a member of staff at Northern General"

About: Northern General Hospital / Trauma and orthopaedics

(as a staff member),

I have worked on this ward or many years now and to see some the blogs and comments about my ward are shocking.

First of all, may I address the over use of lactulose. The reason why nursing staff are concerned about bowel movements is that a patient who is on the trauma list may be starved for a day or two at the least. Plus the factors of having hip surgery can effect the bowel opening as normal, patients can get constipated or at the worst case, the bowel could burst.

As for buzzers going unanswered, sometimes there's only one support worker on shift especially nights shifts and sometimes afternoon shifts too.

Thirdly I would like to ask family members and care staff to bring in clothes as well as night wear to help the patients with their rehabilitation after surgery . Also any information on what they like and do not like regards to food and how they take their medication.

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Responses

Response from Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 11 years ago
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 14/03/2013 at 09:17
Published on Care Opinion at 09:53

Dear 5678

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on issues raised in other posts and blogs. It is not clear, exactly, what these comments referred to or where they were posted, but we would be happy to respond to any concerns that are brought to our attention. In response to the issues you raised we would like to make the following points:

Overuse of Lactulose

Any type of surgery and, in addition, the use of pain killers after surgery can affect normal bowel function. It is, therefore, good practice to proactively prevent and manage the risk of constipation by prescribing laxatives and encouraging a high fibre diet where appropriate. Nursing staff evaluate the effectiveness of prescribed treatments on a daily basis and would adjust the use of laxatives if it was thought it was causing unintended problems.

Unanswered Buzzers

We work carefully to achieve a safe level of nursing staff which includes both Support Workers and Qualified Nurses working as a team. The introduction of Intentional Rounding to anticipate patient need by regularly checking they are comfortable is reducing the incidence of unanswered buzzers.

Partnership Working

We aim to work in partnership with patients, their families and carers in order to meet all of the patient's needs

Thank you again

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