Poor Ward Care is Harming Patients

Article

Poor ward care is harming patients, warns a senior doctor in this weeks British Medical Journal. Recent figures show that three of the four most common causes of delayed discharge are associated with inadequate care on the ward: pressure sores, healthcare-acquired infections, and medication errors.

This crisis is the result of lack of trained staff, lack of continuity of care, and poor leadership, and it is directly harming patients, argues consultant anesthetist, Katherine Teale.

Common complaints include never seeing a nurse except when drugs are being handed out, days going by without any contact with senior medical staff, having to virtually beg for help moving up the bed or getting to the toilet, and repeated requests for pain relief.

Its these experiences, and not the skilful surgery, that patients remember and tell their friends about. And its these that make patients, especially elderly patients, dread being in hospital, she says.

Its easy to blame the nurses, but we doctors have to take our share of the responsibility, she adds. If the senior medical staff are rarely on the ward seeing what goes on, if they dont act as role models for their trainees, and dont make themselves available to support the nursing team then patient care suffers.

Ward care is just as important as complex surgery and can be just as difficult but unfortunately it is not so glamorous, nor is it appreciated by peers. This is tragic, not only for the patients but also for the future of the hospital.

Its madness to spend thousands of pounds on fancy surgery if the patients are then allowed to develop avoidable complications, she concludes.

Source: British Medical Journal

Related Videos
Association for the Health Care Environment (Logo used with permission)
Woman lying in hospital bed (Adobe Stock, unknown)
Photo of a model operating room. (Photo courtesy of Indigo-Clean and Kenall Manufacturing)
Washington, USA, US Treasury Department and Inspector General Office.    (Adobe Stock File 210945332 by Brian_Kinney)
A plasmid is a small circular DNA molecule found in bacteria and some other microscopic organisms. (Adobe Stock 522876298 by Love Employee)
Peter B. Graves, BSN, RN, CNOR, independent perioperative, consultant, speaker, and writer, Clinical Solution, LLC, Corinth, Texas; Maureen P. Spencer, M.Ed, BSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, infection preventionist consultant, Infection Preventionist Consultants, Halifax, Massachusetts; Lena Camperlengo, DrPH, MPH, RN, Senior Director, Premier, Inc, Ocala, Florida.
Maddison B. Stone, MPH, CIC, LSSGB, senior infection preventionist, JPS Health Network, Fort Worth, Texas; and Jordan M. Chiasson, PharmD, BCIDP, clinical pharmacist - antimicrobial stewardship, JPS Health Network, Fort Worth, Texas
Central line catheter (Adobe Stock, unknown)
UV-C Robots by OhmniLabs.  (Photo from OhmniLabs website.)
Surgery (Adobe Stock, unknown)
Related Content