Lord Mancroft and the promiscuous nurses
There is an unpleasant story doing the rounds at the moment which was started by Lord Mancroft who claims, on the basis of his anecdotal experience, that nurses are “grubby, drunken and promiscuous”.Cynically using his Parliamentary protection from the laws of defamation, he named the hospital where he claims:
"The nurses that looked after me were mostly grubby. We're talking about dirty fingernails, slipshod, lazy. It's a miracle I'm still alive. But worst of all my Lords they were drunken and promiscuous. How do I know that? Because if you're a patient and you're lying in a bed, and you're being nursed from either side, they talk across you as if you're not there. So I know exactly what they got up to the night before, and how much they drank, and I know exactly what they were planning to do the next night, and I can tell you, it's pretty horrifying." (Daily Telegraph)
I do not believe it. I do not believe that real nurses would behave in this way. What Lord Mancroft probably does not realise is that this kind of “routine nursing care” is these days rarely provided by nurses. They are too important to be changing beds. This work is now done by assorted auxiliaries who have been taken away from the routine cleaning duties they used to perform so that they can act up to do jobs for which they are not trained. Jobs that used to be done by the nurses. The auxiliaries do not do the jobs well, just as the nurses who have left nursing for more important matters do not do whatever it is they now purport to do very well.
I believe Lord Mancroft when he states that the hospital was filthy. Most hospitals are filthy now, because the cleaners are doing “more important” nursing duties. Do I believe that two nursing auxiliaries had dirty finger nails? Yes, I do. How else would MRSA and C. Difficle get around? Do I believe that two young female nursing auxiliaries were chatting about boyfriends whilst they changed a bed. Certainly. That is what young girls do. Chatting about boyfriends in the ward may be discourteous but it does not make these girls “promiscuous” - whatever that word means. In this case, presumably, getting an amount or variety of sex of which Lord Mancroft, an old Etonian and hereditary peer, disapproves. Keep it in the family, eh! my Lord?
This is a nasty little story from a nasty little man.
Labels: dirty hospitals, Eton, Lord Mancroft, promiscuous nurses
43 Comments:
He was probably just jealous, regards Dr Shock
Hmm, I'm not convinced you understand the role (auxiliaries were never "just" cleaners) Dr C & I take some offence - having been an auxiliary for a good few years myself, before I trained. For a start, many HCAs are nursing or medical students "in transit", whilst some senior HCAs are more like the old ENs (without the pay or recognition - and, yes, there is a wider debate here). Surely, the essential truth is that there are good/bad apples in all such barrels, etc etc. And poor infection control is not confined to one profession - especially not given the madness of running at 100% bed capacity (but without the staff).
As for the aspersions cast by m'lud upon nurses and young women everywhere - would he dare say the same of soldiers? And he seems to have memory loss about the privatisation of hospital cleaning...
Crip
Whats happened. The blog is left heavy. Preferred previous design. Don't like this makeover.
I believe the parliamentary privilege means that any MP can call a doctor a murderer or a serial killer [ without any police conviction] and there is no solution. Basically, thats what the Parliamentary Commissioner told me.
So both of us could be called a murderer tomorrow in parliament and there is nothing we can do about it. Thats Eskine May for you eh.
By the way, some nurses are a bit on the slapper side - so are some doctors but thats life. Personally, I wish I had shacked up more as opposed to reading so many medical books and law books and books basically. Reading books hasn't done me much good has it - so maybe the nurses have the right idea :)
Rita Pal
www.nhsexposed.com
www.nhexposedblog.blogspot.com
Hi Lost nurse
I am sure you are right. The auxiliaries have probably "upskilled " now, leaving no one at all to do the basic work
John
Hmm. If it was just this story, and considering the source, I might have been inclined to dismiss it as a tale that had benefited from over-enthusiastic retelling.
But then I read the comments below the Telegraph story, and every other one recounts an experience at least as bad, or worse, as His Lordship related.
Are all those people nasty little men telling nasty little stories, too?
llater,
llamas
"nasty little man"... complete and utter cock if you ask me. Also he is a smug looking git as well.
I agree that the new layout is not as good as previously.
gentleben
Dr C,
You claim:
The auxiliaries do not do the jobs well, just as the nurses who have left nursing for more important matters do not do whatever it is they now purport to do very well.
I may no longer carry out what you would see as the 'traditional nursing role'. The job I do, I do very well indeed thank you. As usual you spoil an interesting post by being unable to resist having a pop at nurses who work outside of your comfort zone.
Please don't do it, it undermines the value of your posts.
Oh and I agree with Gentleben. Mancroft is a smug looking git and a cock!
He looks a bit like a nonce I once had the displeasure of nursing.
John,
We have one auxillary left at my hospital. One. She has been there 30 years. She is the last of the old school auxillary nurses left at that hospital. She knows her role and was brilliant to work with during the night shift I worked with her.
We now have health care assistants. They are not anything like a nurse but do not see themselves as auxillary nurses either. The vast majority of staff on the ward are health care assistants.
We are talking 1 or 2 nurses and 3 or 4 health care assistants for a 40 bed acute ward. That is insanity.
The HCA's are unable to do:
the medications, titrate drips, assess patients, do dressings, blood draws, cannulation, watch for critical lab values and phone them in, admit patients, discharge patients, start peg feeds, flush tubes, drop NG's and check for placement, catheterize, take off orders, go on ward rounds, chest drain care, suction, trach care, assess for change in conditions etc. Hell I can't even get my health care assistants to document and add up fluid intake and output!
The HCA's are UNABLE to do these things so even if I have 20 health care assistants and the ward looks well staffed, I have to do all of that myself as the NURSE. There is no way I could dump all that and go off changing beds, which is exactly what I prefer to be doing.
The nurses have to handle that stuff alone and if they go off bed bathing instead a patient will get hurt. Then nurses registration will be at risk for "not prioritizing properly".
The doctors will not take on any of the jobs I listed above so it is down to the staff nurses...but yet all we have is one or two staff nurses and multiple HCA's.
We nurses actually prefer basic care to the other stuff because bed bathing and cleaning up shit etc is much easier and more pleasant work. Believe me. There is no stress in that. But we are unable. The only help we have are health care assistants and the only thing they can really do is the bed changes, hygiene, bed pans and obs sometimes (if they feel like it and we can trust that they won't fake them). I do have some excellent HCA's though.
Just thought I would clear some things up.
But I don't expect any conservative politician to say anything positive about the NHS while there is a labour government in power do you?
PS - I went out with more than one nurse that worked at Guys in - no, scratch that, let's just say 'more than 30 years ago'.
And I don't recall a single one of them being in the slightest bit grubby.
But I am sure that not one of them would have dreamed of discussing any of her activities outside the workplace in the hearing of patients.
Do they still ship unsold tickets to the London hospitals, nurses, for the use of? I well recall seeing a number of West End shows, as well as several concerts at the Albert Hall, as a result of this most-generous perk.
llater,
llamas
"leaving no one at all to do the basic work"
I think a broader truth is that there just ain't enough of us (RN & HCA) to do the work, full stop. Juggling IVs does not mean I stop cleaning up shit. Or caring about the "basics". I did not jump straight from making tea to securing the airway...
Upskilling: as an HCA, I regularly took bloods (some trusts allow this, some don't). It was a bloody useful skill to learn.
"I think a broader truth is that there just ain't enough of us (RN & HCA) to do the work, full stop"
This is so true. We sometimes only have 3 or 4 staff now for an acute medical surgical ward on most day shfits. Our managers who never come near the wards say that this is plenty. It is crisis management only at this point during a shift and nothing else. I get admissions and patients going down the tubes needing one to one care as my 15 feeds sit staring at their tray with no one to help. It's sick.
I blogged about the fact that my sisters 8 or 10 chair HAIRSALON has more staff on duty during the day than my 35-40 bed acute medical surgical ward with totally dependent elderly as well as high dependency/ critical care patients.
Staffing does not get adjusted whether we have 2 feeds or 15 or whether all my patients are stable or all of them need one to one care in order to survive the shift.
yeah I do know it should be hair salon. Can't type today.
"It is crisis management only..."
"24 hour care" used to (and sometimes still does) mean that the next shift had a chance to catch up - i.e. you have a bad morning, but the cavalry arrive at about noon. Didn't get to do a dressing because of the arrest? No problem.
On some wards, it's now pretty much 24/7 bedlam. I'd say that some of Lord Mancroft's "grubby" nurses are working harder than he will ever fcuking know.
Fucking grubby little Tory...
Anyway, promiscousness is in the eye of the beholder. In fact, there's probably monks on Caldy Island being more promiscuous than myself...
Qualified nurses may not have time to do bed changing, but I don't agree with the criticism of health care assistants. In hospital a year ago the only people who treated me with any respect as a thinking person were some of the healthcare assistants. Some of them were kind and caring.
However the nurses were generally rude and dismissive. By the way talking over a patient as they are lying there, about the staffs home and social life is in my experience very common and very rude. It makes you feel as if the staff are not treating you as a real person. I can't think of any other profession or situation were this is regarded as acceptable behaviour.
Where is their critisism ofm health care assistants?
I was pointing out that, lovely as some of the care assistants are, most of the work ends up in the nurses lap simply because a HCA isn't allowed to do a lot.
Thank god for the health care assistants who take time out with the patients. The nurses aren't even able to take themselves to the loo. The health care assistants aren't allowed to take responsibility for anything so they can always take their breaks, unlike nurses who often work 14 hours without having a meal. For this reason, many of the HCA's are much cheerier than the nurses.
Jesus I really cannot type today AT ALL. Sorry for the typos.
Pompous old prat. As a patient, can I just reassure all you medical staff out there that I couldn’t give a flying f*** what you get up to on your own time (and if you want to broadcast it to the world, that’s up to you), so long as you’re good at your job when you are working.
As Anne points out, it is indeed true that most RNs actually prefer the hands-on stuff to being stuck at the nurses station buried in a pile of paperwork. I certainly do.
I'm uncomfortable with the dismissive tone of Dr C's post towards HCAs. I've worked with some fantastic healthcare assistants who do excellent and vital work for a wage that's probably less than they'd get stacking the shelves in Tesco. Show them a little frickin' respect.
(And yes, there are also some rubbish HCAs out there too, though the same can be said of just about every other line of work, including GPs.)
It's certainly true that HCAs need more training than they currently get. An intermediate nursing qualification equivalent to the old ENs or the LPNs in the States would probably be an excellent idea. Failing that, making sure every HCA starts an NVQ on the day they start the job would be an achievable first step. That said, being a HCA is one of those jobs where often personal attitude is more important than training and experience. I'd far rather have an inexperienced and undertrained HCA with an excellent attitude on my ward than a well-trained and experienced HCA with a lousy attitude. And believe me, I've worked with both.
Dr Crippen- I am disappointed to read this:
"The auxiliaries do not do the jobs well."
I am/was an auxiliary/HCA- and I did my job well. I was polite to the patients, I didn't talk about my weekend over them- or my sex life. THe only time we would speak aboout our social lives was if we were including the patient in with the conversation.
In my trust, the HCAs are very highly trained.
We do not do medications, touch the IVs/pumps, I occassionally do dressings under supervision of a qualified nurse, I do not cannulate, I do not give oxygen unless directed.
I do: Routine urine testing (and know what I'm looking for), I remove cannulas, I make beds, I assist patients with eating and drinking, I assist patients with washing and oral care, I assist with toileting, I provide catheter and stoma care when needed, I clean floors, I assist in resuscitations, I do observations (not neuro) and I am almost able to take bloods. We go on the course with the nurses to learn how to do this to the same standard, I notice mistakes on the drugs charts and get them corrected, I notice when the patients condition is deteriorating and bleep the on call team.
Do not tar everyone with the same brush please!
Oh, I don't know where you work- but in my trust HCAs suction, complete fluid balance and watch for changes in the patient condition- if we couldn't assess for changes in the patient where would we be?
I don't like his use of the word promiscuous - I don't like the judgement attached to sexually active women. But, perhaps they did have dirty hair and hands. Perhaps they were on a back shift last night and a day shift next day and didn't have time to wash their hair. No excuse for dirty nails though.
However, I have heard nursing staff having very inappropriate conversations either side of a patient. I once heard a nurse talking to her colleague while the two of them bed bathed a patient, telling her how she was going for a smear later and needed to find time to "wash her fanny."
The elderly gent they were washing was quite distressed at having to hear that.
It does happen. It shouldn't happen. But it shouldn't be assumed that all nurses do it.
Actually the HCAs are the only staff I see at my local surgery. At my last visit in addition to checking my BP the HCA checked my test results for kidney function and cardiac screening, discussed with me my recent blood tests and checked up on my salbutamol prescription.
Haven't seen a medical doctor or nurse at the practice for 2 years.
Only negative was that I did have to wait 7 days for the appointment which was half an hour late.
Anne- for the record- HCAs do not always get to take their breaks either. I regularly worked 12.5 hour shifts without a proper break. I tended to find that the nurses always seemed to disappear and take their breaks at the appropriate times leaving me to pick up the peices.
I suppose it depends where you work!
"HCAs suction, complete fluid balance and watch for changes in the patient condition- if we couldn't assess for changes in the patient where would we be?"
At my trust they would be sacked for going outside their scope of practice. My HCA's often disappear when there is a problem. They never want to do the obs and refuse to do the fluid balance charts. They are not allowed to take people to and from theatre or bleep anyone either.
Can I come and work at your trust please?
I was a junior doctor for many years and had, like most young male medics on the wards in those days, the benefit of carnal comfort from many nurses. These young girls were generous in their desire to please and made no unreasonable demands for an ongoing relationship (Junior were commited to their vocation then and unlike today on call rotas were hard). These receptacles for our affections were by night sweet smelling, tender, loving and witty things and a fair proportion of them were also intelligent. By day they were crisply starched, surgically clean, radiantly white, exuded respect for us, and generally knew there place on the wards, where they were as eager to do our bidding, as they had been in our beds.
How times have changed. The Nurse of today is more likely to be fat,of questionable gender, a feminist or possibly even lesbian, a chain smoker, a consumer of Prozac, unwashed,grimy, malodourous, and wouldn't know a clothes iron from a putting iron. They are a resentful, poorly motivated and belligerent bunch,often from lowly backgrounds, their unhappy and not so pretty heads being filled with nonsense about their status ('equality') in the work place. I blame 10 years of Labour government for this depressing situation. Certainly the Junior Medic of today would entertain no intimate truck with this new speices. The moral and physical decline of our once great nation is mirrored exactly by todays nurse.
I don't find the account too difficult to believe and I don't think it has anything to do with a nurse/auxiliary divide.
Nurses tend to reflect the local population from whom they are recruited and, like any respectable occupation for which the entry requirements are not high (the police would be another example), you get geniuses and you get morons (and all that that entails).
Hospital Doc.
Smith, you're either mancroft himself, a twat, or both.
I suspect Smith is just doing some random piss-taking. I wouldn't worry.
... and there never was a bus from Rinteln.
Why is it so difficult to grasp that there are good and bad nurses, good and bad doctors, good and bad accountants, lawyers, bricklayers?
Mancroft copped some of the poorer lot - we've got some in our local Trust: too posh to wash, to ensure their soiled bed-linen is changed, to fill out the obs sheets honestly, etc. Some of them insist on carrying round a radio blaring pop music at 7am, despite the protests of seriously-ill patients, and refuse to ensure other patients' radios/tv's being turned off late at night.
And some of them are excellent.
So why is it OK for Dr C to be vicious about certain nurses and midwives, but Mancroft is not allowed to voice his experiences? Oh, that's right, you don't agree with his politics, so that's OK then.
And by the way, try reading everything he said - he specifically did NOT name the hospital that he criticised, but did name the hospital where he had excellent treatment, which he lavishly praises. He also noted that whilst the junior clerical staff were very nice, they were pretty useless because they were untrained, and he took the trouble to talk to his consultants about the ridiculous amount of box-ticking paperwork - just the kind of thing Dr C complains about regularly and justifiably.
So just what is 'nasty' about Lord Mancroft?
Grubby, Drunken, and Promiscuous
Sounds like Dr. Crippen's law firm.
.........arf
Totty smith: "I was a junior doctor for many years.." I wonder why?
And you neglected to mention the transgender nurses that were rife in the days of old too.
You did know about that didn't you?
This Lowlife MiniatureCock is completely making up shite for some alternate reason. There is absolutely no value to the hospital concerned or to the general public by him standing in his privelidged position and using it as a soap box for suprilous accusations against unnamed generalised others.
I heard someone in the House of Lords was a paedophile.
I'm sure that Lord Mancroft's experience will ring true with many patients. I certainly experienced something very similar a few years ago when I was on a private wing of an NHS hospital.
I find it amazing how this story has been twisted into such a childish rant against female nursing auxiliaries by Dr Crippen, when he has no evidence that the personnel involved were auxiliaries, not RGNs.
I find it amazing how this story has been twisted into such a childish rant against female nursing auxiliaries by Dr Crippen, when he has no evidence that the personnel involved were auxiliaries, not RGNs.
++++++++
I have no evidence either way David, and nor do you. But I do not believe that experienced RGNs would behave in this way . Call me naive and old fashion. The RGNs still left in nursing (not as many as I would like) are well trained on infection control and cross contamination. It is the LACK of such RGNs combined with the target dominated dangerously high patient turnover that is responsible for MRSA and C. Diff.
As to the chatting about boyfriends bit, well, who gives a toss. It was a wholly gratuitous bit of information, and the use of the word "promiscuous" was disgraceful. I don't want to listen to the poisonous rantings of the effete ex-drug addict.
RGNs have enough to put up with, without crap like this
John
"As to the chatting about boyfriends bit, well, who gives a toss(?)"
I do. We should expect decent professional standards from everyone in direct contact with patients, especially the close contact that nurses have with inpatients. Decorum does matter and I'm surprised you seem to take a laissez faire view of this.
Hospital Doc.
"I don't want to listen to the poisonous rantings of the effete ex-drug addict".
Who happens to work for several health charities.
And the hospital he criticised is already dealing with complaints from non-effete non-ex-drug addicts about nurses swearing and telling patients to 'go in their beds'.
Supposing he had just kept his speech to his praise of the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital - would you have found that acceptable, despite his back history, Dr C? And why should an ex-drug addict, who has commendably rebuilt his life, not be allowed to comment on his NHS care?
And yes, you are being naive about the standards of care in many NHS hospitals; there are staff who are being pushed beyond their limits by bad management, and there are some staff who certainly seem to have made the wrong career choice, and since you, me and Lord Mancroft are all paying for them, these matters should be exposed.
Might it be more responsible to tag the Tom Reynolds excerpt with "..but read on..."? The portion actually displayed on your page is strongly out of context. Many will not read further, and you can't really hide behind the Enoch Powell defence.
ALso: This new page design is a bit of a disaster. A too-clever-by-half young web designer, with a "well, you SHOULDN'T be using IE" attitude perhaps?:-) I suggest you cut your losses and ditch him.
I think he has a right to his argument. We need to listen and respond to it.
His argument is based an personal experience, leading to generalization, and argument through insult.
In which case:
The opinion of peers of the realm is that of a bunch of Etonian scummy ex junkies, who despite the vast resources plowed into their education cannot form a coherent argument without succumbing to critical thinking flaws.
Dear Dr Crippen,
I have enjoyed reading your blog regularly for a little while now as I find it interesting, insightful and amusing.
I can certainly agree with some of your views on nurses doing doctor jobs, HCAs doing nursing job views. In many cases, this is a shortsighted way to save money.
However, it is not quite accurate to label HCAs as 'cleaners'. In the hospital I work in, we have cleaners/domestics who clean. We have HCAs whose job certainly involves cleaning, but is not limited to cleaning by any means. Cleaners and HCAs are not one in the same.
The training I received when I started as an HCA was minimal. Having never worked in this environment before, it felt like being placed at the deep end. As I wear the same scrubs as nurses and doctors, other people: staff, patients etc expect me to be a nurse. They expect me to know what to do, and be able to do things a nurse would do. Often I am called 'nurse' by a patient - sometimes 'doctor'. It is not easy trying to fulfill the duties of your role with little training, no formal qualification and high expectations from everyone else.
Furthermore, as an 'unqualified' member of staff, I am at the bottom of the heap and am subsequently treated so. It does not make me feel a valued member of the team to be constantly talked down to, ignored and left to do everyone else's dirty work simply because I work as an HCA.
The fingernail comment was somewhat unnecessary. My fingernails and those of my HCA colleagues are clean. So are those of the majority of my nursing colleagues. I have seen more nurses with dirty or long fingernails than I have seen HCAs with such.
As pointed out above, many HCAs are medical students, nursing students to be etc. Having observed the beha viour and manners of many nurses, I cannot say they are better educated, or cleaner than the HCAs. Sometimes it is the other way around. I would certainly not talk about inappropriate things in front of colleagues, let alone patients.
I am not stupid, I am not trying to be a nurse and I am certainly not dirty. (Nor are my fellow HCAs)
Yours,
R (HCA and medical student to be)
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