"More caring, less cakes and gossip please nurses"

Anything else?

I was referred to the EDA unit at 11pm by MIU at Southmead as they were concerned that after diagnosis I was unable to sit or stand without swiftly becoming faint. After a head injury and strong analgesia combined with a fractured shoulder they decided it was safer to keep me in for observation. As such, I left my parents to go home and continued in the transport ambulance to the ward, being sick in the vehicle on the way. On arrival one friendly nurse took charged of booking me in and was very helpful in getting me in a bay and telling me the doctor needed to check me over before admittance. Thereafter I was pretty much ignored by the other staff on the nursing station in front of me for the full three hours I was there. Three hours instead of overnight because they decided to ignore the advice of their medical colleagues at the referral unit, though I grant I was presenting different and improved symptoms. Having been told that I was just there to be checked in, an unidentified member of staff informed me that I was fine to go home, which the registrar confirmed. Of course by this time I was even further from home, it was 1am and my parents had been dispatched. I had to ask to have a cup of water, sandwich and to go for a loo break while the nurses seemed more interested in sitting in front of me, sniping about certain patients, conducting tests on themselves, flirting and eating Haribo. Surely a drink and an 'are you ok?' Are basic standards of nursing care? An elderly gentleman in the bay opposite was tended to by a very genuine, compassionate doctor but subsequently left shivering in his vest under a blanket he had to get for himself. Again- basic nursing? When he came to be transferred to the ward the nurse left the porter to carelessly unhook him from the obs machines instead of doing it herself. Firstly it seems to me a classic example of poor communications or cooperation between hospitals. Left hand was not talking to the right hand. Secondly the standard of actual caring was so poor, in stark contrast to the lovely team at Southmead MIU. It costs nothing to sit with a patient and chat while you're on duty (instead of gossiping indiscreetly with colleagues) but it makes the world of difference in someone's treatment. Introducing yourself to patients should go without saying - even the Holby actors know that. Basic comforts like drinks and loo breaks should also be mechanical, so really should sympathy and engagement. Pull your socks up, Frenchay.