Managers must look after nurses' mental wellbeing, says NICE

Readers' comments (18)

• Anonymous | 5-Nov-2009 8:42 pm

  hospitals are not looking after nurses health they still ignore the working time regulatin. i am currently working 2pm to 10pm followed by 7am to 2pm , this can be like this for 10 days without a day off

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• Anonymous | 5-Nov-2009 10:38 pm

  I totally agree with the above comment.I work 1pm to 9pm , then I would do 7am to 13.30 the next day or a full night the next day after a late shift. Some of my colleagues do 12 hour shifts for 3 days consecutively. Everyone complains how stressful and tired they are. Nothing is done when one complains. My manager will never ask "How are you ? " As long as the jobs are done and the shift is covered.

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  Mertha Nyamande RMN | 6-Nov-2009 1:56 am

  Systems are already in place, the question is, are they being used? Properly?
  Clinical supervision is often under-utilised. You find that most staff just undertake supervision as supervisors without any training or knowhow of what is expected of them. Leaving a tirade of professionals who do not value clinical supervision because their foundation or early experiences that have been weak at best.

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• Stephen Johnson | 6-Nov-2009 9:36 am

  I've been in the NHS for 15 years and I've known it to have its stressors and its positive sides.
  I told my manager that I was feeling stressed and overwhelmed due to my job. A huge mistake as I soon found out.
  She instantly started to discuss 'capability proceedings' despite the fact she acknowledged I had an 8 day case load when working 5 days a week.
  Would I put my head above the parapet once again to acknowledge my own stress? Unlikely..

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• Anonymous | 6-Nov-2009 9:40 am

  I've experienced poor management of staff from day one. We regularly work 14hr shifts, go on nights then are expected to go back on days after one day to get back to normal. There are no breaks either. And if you can't eat what's going in the bin at meal times (because this is theft and a sackable offence), you may not be able to get that 5mins to eat your sandwich, as patients have a very good way of kicking off as soon as you try to sit down for 2mins.
  
  Management never ask how we are, clinical supervision isn't managed at all. And so staff are left to burn out on their own. Under-staffing plays a key part to this. And not because the trust cannot afford to hire the correct amount of staff. They refuse to, because they would rather hire another director, or give one of them a pay rise to buy a new mercedes. And then comes the end of the year and they have all this money left, so the managers spent it on rubbish, when they could of hired that extra member of staff, and so enabled patient leave.
  Front line staff are not looked after at all. I'm certainly considering looking at private hospitals when I graduate. As I fear things are only getting worse for registered nurses.

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• Anonymous | 6-Nov-2009 10:16 am

  The acute NHS working environment can have a hugely negative effect on mental health - it is constantly demanding emotionally, mentally and physically to way beyond the point of being overwhelming. Nurses cannot just walk away at "finishing time" as it is often personally morally and ethically impossible to walk away from an acutely ill or distressed patient with whom you have established a relationship. The under resourced high demand environment means we are often unable to care for people to the standards we personally hold as adequate or good. It thus soon becomes a "soul destroying" environment, leaching away our personal emotional and mental energies. We become tired, irritable and burnt out..... Managers are under a similar pressure, only removed from the direct personal pressures of contact with patients, and are helpless to help us. This is a service that cannot survive, it is not sustainable. It amazes me that the "good and great" leaders on high do not recognise this, but continue to dish out edicts such as those informing us we need to "care with compassion". Hmmm, they may have had a compassion or consciousness bypass themselves I think...

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• Anonymous | 6-Nov-2009 10:24 am

  oh, and now we even have NICE producing a report telling employers to look after our mental wellbeing. Does this mean we will have more resources, and even time for regular, funded, expert clinical supervision?......I think not....

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• Anonymous | 6-Nov-2009 4:27 pm

  Some of my managers do not even give the time to say "hello", even though my service is under threat of re-deployment. What have we come to when the main reason managers support their staff is that of saving money on sickness, rather than something as simple as respect of a fellow human being. As a nurse I am far more likely to derive satisfaction from the gratitude of patients rather than praise from superiors!

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• Anonymous | 7-Nov-2009 11:58 am

  One on my managers sent a memo round verbally that he would not say good morning to us until we said it to him first. I also had a polite word with him about his inability to say thank you to staff who had down over and able the call of duty, he called me very rude.

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• SUSAN CLAY | 7-Nov-2009 12:12 pm

  i find the response rate to this article very interesting.
  it is so obvious that the majority of staff are in the same postition as mentioned in the above responses.
  i like all the above are of the same feeling and in the same boat, as the saying goes

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• Sam Smith | 7-Nov-2009 11:56 pm

  I am very fortunate that I work in a Community Mental Health Team that has a suuportive manager who always asks how we are and sets time aside for clinical and caseload supervision. However, I recognise that in many teams this is not the case. In my opinion, there is not enough time dedicated to the staffs own mental wellbeing. It is about time that the higher management started to recognise how stressful our jobs as nurses are. Perhaps then we would have less people going off sick and less people who decide to seek alternative careers.

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• Samantha Austen | 9-Nov-2009 5:39 am

  It is somewhat comforting but distressing to hear that others feel this way! I thought it was just me! I recently left my job as an NHS staff nurse after 5 years due to general unhappiness at work. After a stressful year in my personal life i assumed that anxiety and depression i felt was down to these reasons, but realised this year that it was my job that was causing me more stress and unhappiness than anything else. My friends and family could see it before i could, and they could not believe the way we were treated in the workplace - from petit memos from seniors and managers to a rediculous and stressful workload that the lack of staffing was not able to cope with. i became very disillusioned with a job that i once absolutely loved, and it has become nothing but a conveyer belt of patients and beurocracy. I had to make a decision for my health and sanity to get out while i could, and now work for nurse bank and agencies to see how different things are, until i find something that i really want to do. I'm afraid that i'm a bit wary of NHS nursing now, although i am sure everywhere has it's problems.
  It's just such a shame that our caring profession does not care for it's staff!

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• Anonymous | 11-Nov-2009 7:52 pm

  It is certainly liberating to find that so many feel the same way away stress and unhappiness caused from workplace and in particular through the effects of [poor] management!
  
  I am feeling thoroughly stressed and utterly unhappy from the management in the organisation, when they are taking me through the 'informal process' of capability management - on very unsubstantiated grounds! The so-called action plan in the name of 'helping' me is in effect causing me greater anxiety, to an exponential degree that is in effect hampering my everyday clinical judgement and practice! By moving me to a totally different work area, away from my supporting colleagues everyday, for a period of 2 months onwards, which in effect is causing me extra stress in having to locate and to negotiate the extra distance and traffic is adding to the difficulty in focusing in quality service delivery. This is not caring for an indiviudal's health and well being, but an insult in someone's mental health especially when one is subjected to an unjustified proceeding to start with! The closed shop culture of the organisation is there is justify a tick box system, just to qualify that they have helped their employee through a management made difficult position is totally laudible bureacratic clap-trap. All these nonsense is just a justification of the existence of middle management, than a reality of helping with low self-esteem of the staff, whether it is from an exceptional high workload, or difficulties with administration or simple human error that has not affected any patient welfare!

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• Anonymous | 11-Nov-2009 8:04 pm

  I recently have taken a week off sick [genuine physical ill health] without any sense of guilt or regret, after 10 years of extinguished record without taking any sick leave - quite honestly, the current climate of management led tick-box culture of command & control does not encourage any loyalty from staff to give their extra effort to patient care when the management is only concerned with throughput and output and not quality patient outcome!

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• Anonymous | 11-Nov-2009 11:54 pm

  I am about to join 3 of my colleagues who have left Health Visiting in the last year,due to stress,poor management,work overload ,burn out and a bullying N.H.S.culture.
  The health service is now a commercial buisness,service users once called clients keep telling surveys such as net mums,what service they want,and are just ignored ,and given just what the locality thinks they can get away with,which is usually the cheapest,most whittled down service spec possible.We are plugging social service holes daily and giving away our real job,parent and child preventative care and promotion of emotional health to children centres,who are having money thrown at them.Still it is a good job someone is looking after families, because we know longer can.!!!
  Before any one asks ,my 2 colleagues who have left are both in their 30s,what a complete waste.Were they asked why they were leaving ,were they heck.

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• Anonymous | 12-Nov-2009 11:58 am

  I am a staff nurse and I love my job.The biggest source of stress in my hospital is the management.
  They glibly spew out the phrase .This phrase I now find irritating and meaningless,The mangement only put themselves at the heart of things.The patients and staff at the coalface are merely their tools to a very good living.All they care about is ticking the right box ,looking good and maitaining their inflated pay.
  In my hospital finance is the main issue and how to cut costs.These cost saving measures are unfairly distributed.Ward staff vacancies are allowed to remain just that -vacant and the remaining staff are expected , like sponges ,to soak up all extra work.We never hear of management cuts, in fact what we do see is ever more highly paid, none hands on posts ,being created on a regular basis. eg a newly appointed
  Well that will help the dependant patient when the nursing staff are so busy that their fundamental needs cannpot be met in a timely fashion.-i don't think.
  A veritable army of have been appointed-what use is that when quality is suffering through lack of troops-a contradiction in terms here.
  And what do the management think the whole effect of all this is on the ward staff.
  Do they think we do not suffer from knowing that present conditions contribute ,adversely, to our physical and mental well-being.
  They have ,as required by law, to have anti-bullying strategies in place, but the management is the greatest bully we have to face today by their total lack of concern for staff.
  All the right baxes are ticked so there's no problem in their eyes -so little do they know and how poor at managing they are.They should hang their heads in shame.

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• Anonymous | 12-Nov-2009 12:04 pm

  I have just noted that my post has had phrase omitted that detracts from the post.
  The offending phrase is -the patients are at the heart of everything we do.
  The new post is equality and diversity manager.
  The veritable army refere to quality and safety matrons-sorry about all that.

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• Anonymous | 17-Jan-2010 7:36 pm

  any chance of this being sent to south west london & st. georges mh nhs trust
  perhaps they may then remember that it is not ok to treat staff in the manner they currently do

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