dont wanna keep threadjacking lauras thread so thought id send you a message here for a proepr chat, know what you mean about the changes. Ive been in ed for 6 years now and seen our staff numbers cut by a 3rd while our patient ratio increased by 20% minimum. Its madness. We now run on 6 nurses and an auxiliary at night and if anyones sick we are fubar'ed cos we dont even make 1 nurse per area. i can remember when 3am we would be sat down having a chin wag, we now get a lull about 5 and have to use the time to clean and restock. the nhs is so screwed lol. how long you been qualified?

Hi, didn't mean to look like i was ignoring your post, just i'm on days today and had to go to bed!

I've qualified 10 years now, scary how quick it goes!!! what about you?

How do you manage single nights, constant on off on off? from what i gather you just do nights yeah? I've one back on 30 hours and it feels like i may as well be full time, especially as the extra demands that my manager puts on her band 6's! What grade are you?

From what you describe A&E would be my kinda idea of hell! Have you always been there? I did a bit of medicine first off but knew it wasn't my think, all the social sort outs etc do my head in, i like the acute stuff!

right best head off to work now...... i hate shifts at weekends as i don't see matthew at all, he's still in bed now and will be bak there by the time i get home!

claire x

Heya

I qualified mar 03, last proj 2000 lol. So 71/2 years for me how damn scary is that. Im a six too but im one of those little quirks of AFC as im a 6 SN not a SR. Had 3 sister posts advertised in last 2 years and havent gone for a damn one of em as my outlooks changed a lot now with C and im all about family these days and bad as it sounds figure why have the extra stress for no extra pay, im in charge when the need arises (which is often doing perm nights as they use me as a stand in sister rather than having all the sisters doing loads of nights) and the rest of the time i get to play still. I know what you mean about the extra demands though im also the ICLN for the department and i was running the education programme til my last mat leave. Ive kinda been lazy in the last year though tbh and bar the infection audits not done much as i just wanna work and go home again.

I cut about 3 months ago from 37.5 to 32.5 hours a week so i do 2x13 hour nights and an 8 hour day on the weekend. Love my little shift after years of long days it feels like a holiday. It is hard doing the splits but im finding if i do both together im non functional by the 2nd one.

I did Trauma and ortho for a year after qualifiying and i still love trauma, im a proper blood n guts girl the messier the better. Medicine does my box as well as its just so non rewarding. After a year i went to ED and from 2008-2009 I worked 2 roles, i did half my week on ED as a 6 SN and half my week as a sister on MAU - my midwife reckoned i was the biggest masochist she had ever met but i liked the adrenaline lol. I went back solely to ED after mat leave thoughas i didnt wanna juggle childcare and 2 sets of rotas. In the future if i ever leave ED i actually wouldnt mind moving into being the ICLN for the trust if the post ever arises again, they were looking for 6's 2 years ago and im still kicking myself for not going for it. Nice hours, work that may actually make a difference to the infection rates and no one pissing on my shoes or spitting on me lol

Think you will stay on ccu now or got other plans?

Well surprises will never cease! A wonderfully nice sunday on CCU!!!

I'm a cardiac nurse through and through so until i can afford to go into a specialist nurse role and have a lovely 9-5 job i'll be a deputy sister on CCU. At the moment though i can't afford to lose the extra duty and to do 30 hours in short shifts would cost a fortune in childcare! I have joined the bank though for my sins as there are loads of days where matthew is in nursery and i'm off! thought i might as well do the odd shift to try to get the credit card paid off a little quicker!!!
What do you do for childcare? we have to have a nursery that starts at 7.30 due to mine and rich's early starts.

It's great how you were one of the few that did well out of AFC, didn't do much for me i have to say but i didn't lose out! We have absolutely no band 6 staff nurses just deputy sisters and specialist nurses in our trust!

I'm about to start a 3 night streach tomorrow as Rich is on half term so not looking forward to that! Gonna take in a little light reading - my ALS manual as got my re-cert course in november!!! Some people hate doing their ALS but i must be mad as i thoroughly enjoy the adrenaline rush of it all!

I was looking at some of your pics on facebook, i love some of the outfits you have for c, she looks a right little rock chick!!! I'm always on the look out for cool alternative clothes for matthew but they do seem to be a little thin on the ground! Rich was well chuffed when he found a miniture AC/DC t-shirt for matthew in h&m!!!

So are you into alternative music? or just love the rock chick look?
I may look rather normal these days but deep down inside there is a grungy rocker trying to escape!

gosh i've waffled on for far too long! hope you've not had a cardiac arrest out of boredom as i'm not covered to even to BLS at the minute let alone use a defib!!!

Wow brill, is it as rare as nice days on ED these days? We used to get lulls either midweek or early hours of the morning but with our staffing cuts and increases in people coming in it seems non stop and we queue ambulances at least 50% of the week these days.

Lol im covered for ALS and EPLS now til 2012 i think. Im a bad bugger and skim the manual the night before and thats it. Figure you get it on the course and ive not had a problem passing. TBH its so similar to what we do in resus i dont get overstressed anymore. Esp since im a shit magnet and always have nice dramatic resus shifts to keep my hand in. LOL

Re AFC i wrote an appeal letter as E grades in ed were being underskilled in the banding and they agreed so everyone copied my letter and all our e grades ended up 6's lol. I think it was a system someone was bound to lose out and its buggered up the promotions ladder across the board now. Which is a shame as good 5's are being overlooked and 6's like me cba with the hassle instead of trying to get promoted its caused huge stagnation. Does your ed have a dedicated chest pain area? We have a highly rated one so get a lot of ccu coming down for brief secondments. Always nice to see em. I have a childminder on a fri am so do a thurs night and do one other night in the week when i know neil or my parents are off to have her the next day and a day on the weekend when my parents or neil are about again, i kinda muddle by though im permatired as i dont sleep the day before nights unless c naps.

Thanks for the comments on C, she is a little dude lol. Im not really into alternative music though im open to most stuff and pretty eclectic (love love love green day) i just like the style. Im quite tattooed and have a couple piercings and two tone hair so look a bit alternative myself - my boss hates it as shes old school. Ebay is fab for stuff like that though and i get a lot of c's stuff like her leather jackets and skull and crossbones stuff from there. Shes such a funny little bear though and is getting strong minded so im not sure if she will like her clothes as she gets older or develop her own style.Either way is cool. Cant belive how big matthew is getting now, fun ages coming up too, she has me in fits these days. Its ace seeing their minds come alive isnt it.

GREEN DAY are the best!! Did you see them at wembley earlier in the year? Was our first night away from Matthew! I've seen them so many times now i've lost count. They are the one band that i've followed since my teens. I remember seeing them at reading when i was 18 and they had just released dookie, they blew me away and i've been following them ever since.

There are some staff on our ward that are shit magnets!!! Fortunately i'm not one of them. I tend to have more good shifts than bad, but i don't tend to show my stress so everyone around me keeps calm.

Our A&E/CCU layout is a bizarre one. Our trust is spread over 3 hospitals, 2 acute and one planned care/rehab. The 2 acute site used to have a CCU each, one had an A&E attached and the other took direct 999 admissions. The latter had the cath lab attatched which did primary/rescue angios. We have been in a transition process recently going from thrombolysis to primary angioplasty 24/7. This had a knock on effect, that the A&E site were then having to bringing all mi's directly to us at the other hospital, therefore rendering that CCU redundant and our CCU drastically lacking in beds! So some bright spark decided to close the A&E sites CCU and reopen it on our site with us! So the ward i work on had gone from 10 CCU beds and 9 stepdown beds to 19 CCU beds and doubled the staffing. Ambulance are now instructed to bring all mi's straight to us and they go straight to the cath lab for treatment.
Anyone who makes it by accident to A&E get shipped in an ambulance with a cardiac specialist nurse over to us via blue lights! (Hope that makes sense as it was very complicated to write!)

It's a very anxious time at the minute as we are only 3 weeks into the move and I only started back at work a week before the move! Change never goes down well does it, but this i do believe will make things better in the long run!

I can see how your banding system would cause stagnation, we tried to fight our case that we were far more skilled that the average band 5 ward nurse but our trust was having none of it. The fact that every one of us can take bloods, cannulate and is ALS trained ment nothing! But that's the NHS for you.

claireh77 wrote:

GREEN DAY are the best!! Did you see them at wembley earlier in the year? Was our first night away from Matthew! I've seen them so many times now i've lost count. They are the one band that i've followed since my teens. I remember seeing them at reading when i was 18 and they had just released dookie, they blew me away and i've been following them ever since.

There are some staff on our ward that are shit magnets!!! Fortunately i'm not one of them. I tend to have more good shifts than bad, but i don't tend to show my stress so everyone around me keeps calm.

Our A&E/CCU layout is a bizarre one. Our trust is spread over 3 hospitals, 2 acute and one planned care/rehab. The 2 acute site used to have a CCU each, one had an A&E attached and the other took direct 999 admissions. The latter had the cath lab attatched which did primary/rescue angios. We have been in a transition process recently going from thrombolysis to primary angioplasty 24/7. This had a knock on effect, that the A&E site were then having to bringing all mi's directly to us at the other hospital, therefore rendering that CCU redundant and our CCU drastically lacking in beds! So some bright spark decided to close the A&E sites CCU and reopen it on our site with us! So the ward i work on had gone from 10 CCU beds and 9 stepdown beds to 19 CCU beds and doubled the staffing. Ambulance are now instructed to bring all mi's straight to us and they go straight to the cath lab for treatment.
Anyone who makes it by accident to A&E get shipped in an ambulance with a cardiac specialist nurse over to us via blue lights! (Hope that makes sense as it was very complicated to write!)

It's a very anxious time at the minute as we are only 3 weeks into the move and I only started back at work a week before the move! Change never goes down well does it, but this i do believe will make things better in the long run!

I can see how your banding system would cause stagnation, we tried to fight our case that we were far more skilled that the average band 5 ward nurse but our trust was having none of it. The fact that every one of us can take bloods, cannulate and is ALS trained ment nothing! But that's the NHS for you.

Man that sounds complicated. Our trust has a catch all ED so we are the front door and everything comes to us. We have a minor injuries unit with emergency nurse practitioners and doctors which has 3 cubicles, a minor theatres, a plaster room and a mental health assessment room. In majors we have 11 majors cubicles of which 6 are monitored, we also have 3 adult resus bays and a paeds resus bay. And we have a 3 bedded monitored chest pain unit. When i write it down it doesnt sound much for a 200-250 influx a day does it? So we get all chets pains including med expected. the med expected have an ecg then if not an mi go to MAU (ours is AAU) assuming theres beds or else they just sit and back up with us. Emergency chest pains get an ecg sent in by the ambulance crew as a few of our crews are lysis trained so we have been doing pre hospital lysis for a while now. We use alteplase out of hospital and strep in and for those already strepped we just switched from reteplase to tenecteplase. But in last 6 months we have gone to rescue pci from 9-5 mon to fri so when ecg faxed through we get em fast tracked to cath lab and OOH they get referred and blue lighted straight to the nearest centre which is often bristol at night.

Im also a shit magnet when i coordinate lol but ive been told i always seem out wardly cool and calm even if inside im screaming ohshitohshitohshitoshit lol. That said i have to say at least the ambulance queuing days fly by, none of us seem to know what to do when we catch the odd break these days lol. Weird how afc works isnt it, a lot of our argument was based around cannulation, als, coordinating though we also got extra points for the physical side of the job which is very random. We have some bloody brilliant band 5s who under the old system would have been E's by now and i really feel for em. I was already an E and got the nod to jump up. Mind you we are so topheavy its unreal. We have about 10 band 7s but the 6s are screwed over cos theres only a handful of sisters and then its band 6 staff nurses hence coordinating so often.

Ive never actually seen greenday just got a few of their cds and do love it, do have dookie, american idiot and 21st century breakdown (i think i never actually look at the titles as they are my car stereo cds lol). Also like the killers but otherwise just listen to whatevers on at the time, my oh brought home new prodigy cd, invaders must die a few months ago and not only do i like it but C loves it lol, she also listens to cypress hill in daddy's van though lol.

You should see Green day live they are awesome!

Well i had the worst shift in a long time last night, hope your not passing me shit magnet vibes!!!
We were doing 9-5 mon to fri pci for a few years but you'll soon be doing 24 hour and you'll never thrombolyse again!
Our hospital is one of the main ones for cardiac in central england, we take referals from as far out as linconshire.

Right well unfortunately I have to go back to that hell hole and give it another 12 1/2 hours of my life!

Oh mate im off for another 3 weeks so i hope you havent picked up my shit magnet vibes. Will be glad of the lack of lysis though will put our chest pain nurses out of a job lol. Streps bloody horrible stuff in my opinion!

Right you have a good shift i hope and i will chat to you when you feel alive again

Good luck x