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Another awful AMU experience

Story from nhs.uk

"Another awful AMU experience"

About: Royal Bournemouth General Hospital

I was admitted via the GP, early evening. Very nice, friendly and helpful new reception clerk showed me to my bed. What is it with the nurses? Over the 4 hour period, four nurses came and went. Not one said hello. or introduced themselves or asked how I was. The first nurse tipped my records roughly out of a bag, looked up and said I'm not your nurse and walked off. They returned 20mins later with another nurse, opened the notes, said cellulitis, it's all yours and then they both walked off! Then a third nurse appeared and said I'm just going to do your bloods whilst the other two timed them as they had 4 mins left til the end of their shift The constant unprofessional banter across the bed about sun-tans and Glastonbury and swapping off duty and general conversation like, 'oh I'm rubbish at doing cannula's' and 'oh' when the first nurse failed for the second time to actually cannulate properly, was shocking. The HCA sniffed constantly and complained about being at work with a cold, whilst mucking up another two attempts, meanwhile calling me 'my dear' all the time. I am only middle-aged. I have a name and I am also a nurse, if anyone had bothered to ask me some details other than check my dob for my name bands. The icing on the cake was whilst the last ml of IV antibiotics were been given. The nurse said 'you're not allergic are you?'. I kid you not. The Registrar was a star and the only one who actually engaged and spoke to me like an intelligent human. We were reassured and grateful for his management and concern. This was not a busy period and the nurses were not rushed off their feet - stating how calm it was. I would recommend refresher, supervised cannulation/phlebotomy training and highlight the importance of patient engagement and professionalism. I feel very disillusioned with the profession.

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Responses

Response from Royal Bournemouth General Hospital 8 years ago
Royal Bournemouth General Hospital

Submitted on 10/07/2015 at 17:11
Published on nhs.uk on 11/07/2015 at 02:31

Dear Anonymous I am sorry to hear about your negative experience while attending our Acute Medical Unit Due to the nature of your comments I have taken them to the Senior Nurse and Matron of the department for them to respond directly to the points you have raised. Please be assured once we have more information we will submit a further more detailed response regarding your concerns in the next week. In the meantime if you feel it would be helpful to contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) on 01202 704886 or pals@rbch.nhs.uk to give them more details about your visit to the hospital, as any further details would assist us in reviewing your concerns. Regards Sue Mellor Head of Patient Engagement

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Response from Sue Mellor, Patient Experience Lead, The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 8 years ago
Sue Mellor
Patient Experience Lead,
The Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 15/07/2015 at 08:11
Published on Care Opinion at 08:48

Dear Anonymous

Having contacted the AMU Matron she has asked me to pass on the following:

“I would firstly like to apologise for your negative experience on the Acute Medical Unit on your recent admission to our hospital. As the Matron for the department both myself and the Ward Sisters take all feedback extremely seriously and we use this information to improve our service so thank you for taking the time to inform us.

We have worked really hard on the unit with staff on their values and patient experience and would like to assure you that we do receive very positive feedback about the care and service we provide however clearly your experience was not a positive one and we will ensure staff are aware and learn from this.

From reading your comments I feel really disappointed that we failed you on some very basic professional standards and staff attitude from your description was very disappointing. I would like to share your comments with all of my nursing staff as I believe this will have a huge impact for them to hear therefore we will include as part of our daily staff briefing so that it is shared with all.

We have recently increased our senior nurse cover and as a senior nursing team we will be challenging any instances of unprofessionalism and this includes inappropriate discussions regarding non-work related activities and as the Matron I will be closely observing this.

Again please accept my apology and please contact our PALS service if you would like to discuss anything further; they will be able to give you my contact details should you require. I would be very happy to discuss anything further.”

Matron - Ambulatory and Acute Medicine

I sincerely hope her response goes in some way to resolving your memories of your experience with us and that should you ever need to attend again you will see improvements

Regards

Sue Mellor

Head of Patient Engagement

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