Letters
Send your views by email to [email protected], the letters editor @RogerEvansE1, post on the Nursing Standard Facebook page or visit www.nursing-standard.co.uk
Please keep letters to a maximum of 200 words, and include your full name and a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited
Smiling and caring more is not the sole answer to all of the NHS’s woes I read with interest your article on Linda Aiken’s lecture to the RCN research society (News October 8). We have known in this country for many years that smiling more and caring more is not the answer alone. Creating work environments in which nurses can deliver care compassionately and effectively is essential. This involves engaged and enabled front line staff making decisions and being able to get things done; sisters and charge nurses supervising care, stores, linen and food – all very good and available on demand. We need strong medical leadership and all members of the multidisciplinary team involving patients and their families in care. Meanwhile administrative processes such as outpatients appointments and waiting list management must be sleek and streamlined, ideally across organisational boundaries. Nurses should speak up about these issues if we are to move on and improve patient satisfaction. The right staffing numbers are an important part of this, but not the only piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Janice Sigsworth, director of nursing, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
RUNNING PEOPLE INTO THE GROUND DOES NOT GET THE BEST FROM THEM In response to your editorial, Listen to the evidence on safe staffing levels (October 8), having nursed for 43 years, I can say that there have never been enough nurses. As a nursing student, I learned to care for patients holistically. They were washed, bathed, helped with their hydration, oral care and pressure ulcer care, for example. We even had time to talk to our patients. But as a qualified nurse, I invariably worked long shifts, usually without
meal breaks and never with enough cover. I was treated like a machine and ended up burned out. We need to know that someone cares for us, but I feel that nursing never looked after me. Nurses now do many jobs that were the responsibility of doctors, with healthcare assistants undertaking more hands-on care than nurses. It is unfortunate that state enrolled nurse training is no longer provided. We must learn to care for our nurses. We do not get the best out of people by running them into the ground. Pat Breeden, Lincoln
WHY NOT INVOLVE RELATIVES IN PROCESS OF FEEDING PATIENTS? Stephen Wright’s article, Healing on a plate (Reflections October 8), struck a chord with me. When my mother was in hospital she would be non-committal about what she had for lunch when we visited her. Soon a couple of casual questions to staff elicited a grudging disclosure
that they were usually run off their feet, while mentioning my mother’s reluctance to eat cold food. Alarmed, I asked to come in and feed her in the afternoons. The nurses’ negative reaction was rather shocking. I come from a culture where family, friends, even neighbours, take it on themselves to feed their loved one in hospital. So I was determined to overcome any resistance. Eventually I did, by writing to the CEO of the trust and winning the argument. Ensuring patients’ nutritional and hydration needs are met is a crucial part of recovery, and the possibility this is not a priority is disturbing. Surely involving a patient’s relatives in this aspect of care would be a step in the right direction? Zeba Arif, by email
12-HOUR SHIFTS HAVE FORCED ME TO HANG UP MY NURSING APRON I was pleased to see there is some research into 12-hour shift
34 october 22 ::from vol 29 no 8 :: by 2014 STANDARD Downloaded RCNi.com ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 22, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
Send your views by email to [email protected], the letters editor @RogerEvansE1, post on the Nursing Standard Facebook page or visit www.nursing-standard.co.uk
Please keep letters to a maximum of 200 words, and include your full name and a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited
Smiling and caring more is not the sole answer to all of the NHS’s woes I read with interest your article on Linda Aiken’s lecture to the RCN research society (News October 8). We have known in this country for many years that smiling more and caring more is not the answer alone. Creating work environments in which nurses can deliver care compassionately and effectively is essential. This involves engaged and enabled front line staff making decisions and being able to get things done; sisters and charge nurses supervising care, stores, linen and food – all very good and available on demand. We need strong medical leadership and all members of the multidisciplinary team involving patients and their families in care. Meanwhile administrative processes such as outpatients appointments and waiting list management must be sleek and streamlined, ideally across organisational boundaries. Nurses should speak up about these issues if we are to move on and improve patient satisfaction. The right staffing numbers are an important part of this, but not the only piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Janice Sigsworth, director of nursing, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
RUNNING PEOPLE INTO THE GROUND DOES NOT GET THE BEST FROM THEM In response to your editorial, Listen to the evidence on safe staffing levels (October 8), having nursed for 43 years, I can say that there have never been enough nurses. As a nursing student, I learned to care for patients holistically. They were washed, bathed, helped with their hydration, oral care and pressure ulcer care, for example. We even had time to talk to our patients. But as a qualified nurse, I invariably worked long shifts, usually without
meal breaks and never with enough cover. I was treated like a machine and ended up burned out. We need to know that someone cares for us, but I feel that nursing never looked after me. Nurses now do many jobs that were the responsibility of doctors, with healthcare assistants undertaking more hands-on care than nurses. It is unfortunate that state enrolled nurse training is no longer provided. We must learn to care for our nurses. We do not get the best out of people by running them into the ground. Pat Breeden, Lincoln
WHY NOT INVOLVE RELATIVES IN PROCESS OF FEEDING PATIENTS? Stephen Wright’s article, Healing on a plate (Reflections October 8), struck a chord with me. When my mother was in hospital she would be non-committal about what she had for lunch when we visited her. Soon a couple of casual questions to staff elicited a grudging disclosure
that they were usually run off their feet, while mentioning my mother’s reluctance to eat cold food. Alarmed, I asked to come in and feed her in the afternoons. The nurses’ negative reaction was rather shocking. I come from a culture where family, friends, even neighbours, take it on themselves to feed their loved one in hospital. So I was determined to overcome any resistance. Eventually I did, by writing to the CEO of the trust and winning the argument. Ensuring patients’ nutritional and hydration needs are met is a crucial part of recovery, and the possibility this is not a priority is disturbing. Surely involving a patient’s relatives in this aspect of care would be a step in the right direction? Zeba Arif, by email
12-HOUR SHIFTS HAVE FORCED ME TO HANG UP MY NURSING APRON I was pleased to see there is some research into 12-hour shift
34 october 22 ::from vol 29 no 8 :: by 2014 STANDARD Downloaded RCNi.com ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 22, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
