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Last night I watched an interesting programme on nursing care in British hospitals. Two hospitals were hand picked by the producer of the show and one of them is a client we are currently working with.
　　
　　Two newly qualified nurses went undercover for the programme with a secret camera. The focus was on elderly care wards. The programme revealed some shocking elements of bad nursing and also raised a number of alarming questions on hospitals’ cleanliness.
　　
　　In the programme, we saw elderly patients being force fed or starved because their dietary needs were not properly assessed upon admission, and some less mobile patients being left in their own urine and faeces all days while nurses were busying with other duties. We also saw wards were often left uncleaned, because cleaning duties were not clearly assigned. This had resulted in increasing number of infections (esp. MSRA aka the superbug) on the wards investigated.
　　
　　I must admit that the programme did not make happy viewing. British healthcare system (aka National Health Services, NHS) is funded by the government out of taxpayers’ monies and every resident in the country receives the care for free. This has put a restrain on the system, and many hospitals have found them unable to cope with the demand. With funding being linked with reams and reams of performance targets introduced by the New Labour, patient care is more and more becoming a secondary objective.
　　
　　Last year I was asked to do a piece of benchmarking work on nursing, the work was commissioned by a number of top hospitals in the country, I was shocked when some vital information were not collected or reported, especially the data on infection, dietary / nutrition assessment, adverse incidents and complaints. Therefore a programme on the quality of nursing care is, no doubt, timely.
　　
　　However this also raises an ethical question. Should undercover agents and secret cameras be allowed to expose wrongdoings or gathering evidence?
　　
　　I was talking to a colleague this morning, she was not impressed by the programme and felt that the two hospitals were being portrayed unfairly, and the evidence presented in the show were unbalanced and breached patient confidentiality. However, she did agree that bad nursing definitely exists.
　　
　　Personally, I feel that the media has a duty to expose issues that are close to viewers’ hearts. But are undercover agents and secret cameras the best way to target the issues? I’d like to know your comments / views on this.
　　
　　Thank you for reading!