have a rant at another proffession

[Kent Fox]

Lots of blurb..

You still dissed the nurses, mate and that is not right.

You are not talking to someone who doesn't have some knowledge of what goes on in a hospital and I take the points about the NHS etc.

But you still appear to under estimate the work of a nurse. If what you say is right, then it would appear that they do less than they used to and NA's are doing more.

Which bothers me (and Nurses!) in that patients are not getting the care of a fully trained, qualified nurse. NA's are to nursing what PCSO's are to the Police Force, aren't they??

[Finnegan]

Errr. No. An NA isn't voluntary, Hobby-Bobbies are. As far as I'm aware?

[Daggers]

You still dissed the nurses, mate and that is not right.

Why?

What gives them the right to be beyond reproach (beyond being married to you)?

How about the one that works with my missus that has been off for the last seven weeks with 'a splinter'?

Or the idle cnut that has her full entitlement of sick leave in one hit every time she can because she has 'bad dreams'?

I'd go on but there's plenty doing that here today...

[Fez of Mahrez]

Can I just clarify one thing, I'm not having a go at nurses (per say) just the fact that they (along with teachers) always moan about their pay!! When I consider it decent, not good, but decent compared with other jobs out there.

Close but all so wrong! I have to inject Radioactive materials into patients (subject to both medicine's and Ionising radiation's acts), many of the patients we do have cancer and are very ill (from 1 week to 100years old), if I cock up in any area, radiopharmacy (we make the injections too), injecting, care, scanning or radioactive disposal. I am answerable, in law, and subject to lengthy investigations.

And don't tell me about nurses not all working on wards!! My Mum is a community nurse!! And we have nurses in our department!

But you never sent me a card last year!!!

That there is also what annoys me!!! Nurses do not save lives!!! The NHS as a whole saves lives!!! I know it's hard for people to understand but there if more to hospitals than Doctors and Nurses!!

Who gives the injection - The Nurse

Where did the nurse get the needle from to stick in your arm- Logistics/procurement

Who actually made the drug they're going to give you - Pharmacists/pharmacy tech's

Who prescribed that drug - Doctors

How do they know what drug to use (i.e. what's wrong with you) - Biomedical scientists, MLSO's, Radiographers, Technologists!, cardiac technicians, Ultra-sonographers, Audiologists, phlebotomists

How do you get to your tests - Porters

Who makes sure that the testing/monitoring equipment works - Physicists, Medical Physics tech's, workshop engineer's, electricians.

You need surgery, but who makes this happen - Sterile services, Operating Department Assistants

Who makes sure you stay okay - Physio's, NA's, Catering staff.

Who makes sure your old notes are there - Clinic administrators, clerical staff.

But the building? - Estates

Who can make sure you stay okay at home - Occupational therapists.

Finally who puts all this together - Nobody likes them but they have to budget for ALL of this: Managers!

You forgot IT.

[Kent Fox]

Errr. No. An NA isn't voluntary, Hobby-Bobbies are. As far as I'm aware?

I meant in a professional / less professional capacity. Not that I am saying NA's are unprofessional in any shape or form, just that, generally, a fully qualified nurse compared to a NA is alikened to a fully trained copper and a glorified traffic warden.

[Rincewind]

Nope genuinely!!! Teachers do take the piss 13 weeks!!! And they only have to do class plans when Offsted are in!!

Nurses do bugger all!!! I work in a hospital, (on a ward briefly!) I know. Next time you're in a hospital see who is looking after you... it ain't the nurses, it's the Nursing Assistants (NA's) (on < £16,000). Nurses sit at the desk ignoring people... and thay're bloody good at it!!

It's the NA's who should get a pay rise not Nurses!!!

Nurses are on the same pay scale as me, I consider it a decent wage, not great... but anyone who joins the heath service to get rich is sadly mistaken.

So lets see Nurses; start on £19,600 and can easily (with time) get to £31,000. They retire at 55 (I have to retire at 60 for now), get a (good) final salary pension, 6 months full, 6 months half sick pay. min. of 27 days holiday (29 after 5 years, 33 after 10). Guaranteed 2 payrises a year (for 10 years).

Compare that to any job around the East Midlands and you'll find that's nothing worth moaning about!!!

Teachers do not actually get 13 weeks paid holiday. Their salary is based over a year. Many of them start early before the kids go back working out the caricculum for the coming term. Some mark course work while they are off. Others are involved in out of school activities with the pupils. A lot of their time is spent volunteering to help certaing kids out of hours. They are not always paid for this.

I do not know the percentages of teachers that do this but even so controlling 30 or so adolescent teenagers all bent on causing mayhem is not that easy. At least I wouldn't want to do it even for half a year off.

[Kent Fox]

Why?

What gives them the right to be beyond reproach (beyond being married to you)?

How about the one that works with my missus that has been off for the last seven weeks with 'a splinter'?

Or the idle cnut that has her full entitlement of sick leave in one hit every time she can because she has 'bad dreams'?

I'd go on but there's plenty doing that here today...

Hang on!

Who said they were beyond reproach?

All I am saying is that nurses do not deserve the amount of grief they do get from people who do not understand what they have to do on a daily basis. They do that job because they care, not for any great reward. All they want is fair pay. And people perceive 'fair' differently.

I was just emphasising what a nurse does, or did, in my wife's time within the NHS and frankly, it is a lot more than may people either care about or understand.

Personally I think nurses, along with others, deserve to be better paid for what they do!

I can't comment on the splinter thing, nor the bad dreams one but suspect there is more to it than you have been told by your missus.

I am not having an argument here about this - it is pointless. And fail to see why you threw in such an aggressive line.

Would you prefer to block me now or later

[Daggers]

Teachers do not actually get 13 weeks paid holiday. Their salary is based over a year. Many of them start early before the kids go back working out the caricculum for the coming term. Some mark course work while they are off. Others are involved in out of school activities with the pupils. A lot of their time is spent volunteering to help certaing kids out of hours. They are not always paid for this.

I do not know the percentages of teachers that do this but even so controlling 30 or so adolescent teenagers all bent on causing mayhem is not that easy. At least I wouldn't want to do it even for half a year off.

Teachers are contracted for 1267 hours per year and remunerated for that, refered to as "directed hours".

They are not paid for holidays but the salary is delivered in twleve monthly payments.

[andyh1884]

Recruitment agencies.

The amount they charge for what they actually do is unbelieveable. It's not unusual for them to charge the equivalent 20 per cent of a candidate's first year's salary, so if you go to an agency and get a job that pays you 20k, the recruitment agency might get as much as £4000. I have to use them unfortunately, and when we take people on, the candidates never have a clue how much the agency made on them, and when I tell them they're usually quite surprised - particularly as in some cases they've never actually met anyone at the agency who in some cases have done nothing other than pass on a CV. It makes the charges levied by solicitors and accountants look cheap.

It's like any walk of life though, there are good ones and bad ones. Possibly

I found the recruitment agency invoice for their finders fee for me the other day, they got 25% of my salary. It now means I have to justify an extra 25%!

To be fair though, they were really good & got me in before each interview to go through technique, questions they'd ask, questions I could ask them which was a big help seeing as I hadn't had a job interview for 6 years & was a bit rusty.

[Alexikokopops]

Hang on!

Who said they were beyond reproach?

Erm, you?

You still dissed the nurses, mate and that is not right.

[Finnegan]

My mother's been in and out of hospital plenty through her life, chronically suffering from MS. And I have to say, her last stint, about eighteen months ago, didn't exactly fill me with confidence in the current state of nursing. I'm not claiming to be an expert and I'm certainly not obtuse enough to judge the entire NHS on the standards of LGH, but Dave's right. To claim Nurses are untouchable by criticism is a little extreme, and I would suggest that Phube (however wrong he may be sometimes ) is in a slightly better position to tell you what goes on in a hospital than the visa versa.

[Daggers]

Hang on!

Who said they were beyond reproach?

You did - "You still dissed the nurses, mate and that is not right."

I am not having an argument here about this - it is pointless. And fail to see why you threw in such an aggressive line.

For someone not having an argument about it you have certainly contributed a fair bit on the topic today.

Aggressive? I suggest you get a hobby to tide you over until you find another job because you seem to take this whole forum thing a bit too seriously...

[Kent Fox]

Erm, you?

FFS!

I have not said they are beyond criticism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have said it is not right to criticise them for doing fcuk all, which Phube was saying. Kind of. It is not right to criticise them for appearing to sit at a desk whilst NA's do all the work.

Read the fooking thread properly!

[Finnegan]

We have read the thread properly. You said "dissing nursers" was not on. You weren't specific.

[Kent Fox]

You did - "You still dissed the nurses, mate and that is not right."

For someone not having an argument about it you have certainly contributed a fair bit on the topic today.

Aggressive? I suggest you get a hobby to tide you over until you find another job because you seem to take this whole forum thing a bit too seriously...

Good Lord!

See the post above to Ormonpops.

And isn't contributing different to arguing. I always thought that opinion was just that

I know I can be aggressive at times, but can't we all

[Kent Fox]

We have read the thread properly. You said "dissing nursers" was not on. You weren't specific.

Clearly you haven't read it properly.

And maybe I need to be more specific. However, I tend to credit everyone with the same level of intelligence so in this case, didn't think it would be necessary. I was wrong.

The "dissing nurses" bit was about Phube saying that nurses sit at a table all day whilst NA's do all the work. I do not believe that to be true.

Statements like that are dissing nurses,

And THAT is not right.

Now, how much more specific do I have to be?

[Finnegan]

Yes. You're being specific now, congratulations. That's called back-pedaling. That doesn't change the fact that what you said is what you said, and people can hardly be blamed for interpreting it literally. Don't blame your poor communicational skills on everyone else's ability to read and analyse.

[Jon the Hat]

As in any profession there are nurses who don't pull their weight, but I also know personally of nurses who have been off sick with stress for months (often explained away as others reasons publicly), others who have left to stack shelves at Tesco and even one poor girl who killed herself in Nurse quarters.

All of this and many other symptoms point to a profession which is suffering under pressure from all angles. They are demoralised by short staffing, underpaid in relation to their increasing responsibilities (admittedly this differs by where you are in the country), working in filthy wards with no ability to influence their cleanliness (short of staying behind and doing the job themselves).

Nurses are blamed for not washing their hands while consultants go around touching one patient then the next without gloving or washing.

On the other hand, my wife trained in Australia, and considers general standards to be outdated in the NHS in many areas, and believes that there are instiutional changes required to change this, not just in the NHS but also in the RCN.

Nurses are not and should not be beyond criticism whatever politicians might tell us, but before you aim at one particular group, I think it is important to understand a little about the conditions they work under.

[Kent Fox]

Yes. You're being specific now, congratulations. That's called back-pedaling. That doesn't change the fact that what you said is what you said, and people can hardly be blamed for interpreting it literally. Don't blame your poor communicational skills on everyone else's ability to read and analyse.

That wasn't back pedalling.

BACK PEDAL: to retreat from or reverse one's previous stand on any matter; shift ground: to back-pedal after severe criticism.

I stand by what I said - I think Phube is wrong to suggest that Nurses do fook all. To suggest such is dissing them.

Like I said before, I credit everone with the same level of intelligence. Clearly that is the wrong tack to take on here.

[lookwhaticando]

A more specific case... the public servant that tries to milk their status.

Prime example the other day, a policewoman - travelling non-essentially (i.e. no emergency) - trying to blag a change to an earlier flight than the one she was booked on. Apparently her argument went a little like this:

Pig: I'm on this flight, can I change to the earlier one?

Rep: Yes... it's $100 to change.

Pig: (Points to police badge) Is there anything you can do for me?

Rep: Yeah... I can change you... if you pay me $100.

Pig: (Repeats herself, again pointing to badge repeatedly).

Rep: As I said... pay me $100 and you can go.

Pig: But that means I have to pay out of my own pocket.

At this point, it becomes obvious that she's not even paid for the ticket anyway... which makes anyone dealing with her even less likely to do anything for her. So... she's travelling at the expense of the local ratepayers... and she's trying to blag an earlier flight by using her status as a public servant (pig).

That kind of behaviour doesn't sit well with me at all. I've a lot of time and respect for people who dedicate themselves to the public good - firemen, medics, nurses, doctors and so on... - but as soon as they try and milk their position, I couldn't give a toss about them any more. I find it highly distasteful... if you're doing something that people appreciate/approve of, they will help you without you having to ask for it.

Kinda funny, really, that the police seem to be the worst for this kind of behaviour... perhaps they're not all that important/appreciated after all. I wonder if it's anything to do with their ridiculously placed speed traps that operate around here at silly times of day?

[Phube]

You forgot IT.

I knew I'd forget someone!!! They like to 'upgrade' systems for us!!

You still dissed the nurses, mate and that is not right.

You are not talking to someone who doesn't have some knowledge of what goes on in a hospital and I take the points about the NHS etc.

But you still appear to under estimate the work of a nurse. If what you say is right, then it would appear that they do less than they used to and NA's are doing more.

Which bothers me (and Nurses!) in that patients are not getting the care of a fully trained, qualified nurse. NA's are to nursing what PCSO's are to the Police Force, aren't they??

I have said it is not right to criticise them for doing fcuk all, which Phube was saying. Kind of. It is not right to criticise them for appearing to sit at a desk whilst NA's do all the work.

I stand by what I said - I think Phube is wrong to suggest that Nurses do fook all. To suggest such is dissing them.

I know I said they did 'bugger all' and just 'sit at the desk', but I was being (slightly) facetious! I know what they do, they check drug charts, prescriptions, do the drug rounds etc. But they don't do the stuff the general public seem to think they do. They don't feed, wash, clothe, toilet... etc. the patient's NA's do that. And to Jonny Public who has a stint in hospital it does seem that way!

Some anecdotal evidence!

My Wife's grandad recently died at the LRI, and his family never saw a Nurse, always an NA.

My Mum (who's a community nurse) recently broke her arm and needed surgery was in a side room and if it wasn't for the cleaners and NA's she wouldn't have known she was in hospital! She was shocked!

Finally my Nurse at work recently had a Choleocystectomy! (Gall bladder out) and was disgusted by her stay, her obs were only taken once in 72 hours!!!

[Fez of Mahrez]

I had a minor operation in May and the nursing assistants helped make it one of the happiest memories of my life.

[Finnegan]

I had a minor operation in May and the nursing assistants helped make it one of the happiest memories of my life.

Bow chika bow wah.

[Fez of Mahrez]

Bow chika bow wah.

That was part of it, yes.

[Webbo]

I have to agree with Phube when I was in hospital (appendix) many years ago and when visiting an elderly relative I have to say some of the nurses were appalling, ignorant and lazy. This is not to say that they are any worse than the average British worker, but they're certainly not the angels they are made out to be.