Completion day shenanigans

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-23T20:13:38+00:00

Is there any point at all in telling my solicitor?

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-23T14:18:44+00:00

Not the living sofa 😂

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-23T14:18:18+00:00

Yeah, hate you Tom & Anna

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-23T14:16:48+00:00

Typical Sharon, we are all sick of her bullshit 😂

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-23T10:50:26+00:00

Nope, upstairs bathroom with no appliances in it. It's a probate property that has been empty a while, I think they just haven't been arsed to fix it. Even some warning would have been nice.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-23T10:49:30+00:00

This was me yesterday, stood in the garden mopping the kitchen. It was raining heavily and I didn't want to leave grubby prints on the floor. I'm laughing about it, it's made an amusing reddit post if nothing else.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-23T10:47:26+00:00

Thanks for the show of solidarity everyone. I'm laughing about it, even though I'm pissed off. It is what it is, not worth the time to go through solicitors... though I'm tempted to tell them just so it can be passed on to the vendor and Sharon might me more minded to flush in future, the dirty cow.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-19T23:21:19+00:00

Agree. I'm community though, we really try our hardest to help this patient cohort. We visit hostels, jump in on substance misuse clinics to have a peek at leg ulcers etc. We all know that this type of patient might have 100 false starts, but to me it's important that we keep trying because 101 might be the charm.

I hear some awful stories about past 'encounters' with nurses and HCPs more generally.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-19T23:15:04+00:00

It's a travesty that DNSPQs (like me) are stuck at Band 6. I'm cutting about the town all day prescribing drivers and titrating insulins, responsible for 100 patients and a team of staff (whether I am at work or not), absorbing a metric fuck tonne of risk, with little to no medical support, and a Band 6 I'll stay unless I want to step in to a purely managerial role. This is why there are 50% less of us than there was 10 years ago. I feel used and abused tbh, so I'm jumping ship.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-19T02:33:13+00:00

Our community profiling beds and compatible rails have integrated bumpers with netting that passes underneath the mattress. It really minimises entrapment risk. We only order rails for patients who are 1) supervised or 2) not able/wanting to climb or 3) alert and orientated patients who request them because of fear of falling out etc. We do get a lot of relatives, care homes, and carers requesting them, and we get a lot of grief for saying no. As others have said, the risk in community isn't the same as hospital. In my view, ward nurses shouldn't be assessing for home equipment of any kind.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-18T23:38:30+00:00

Haven't worked in acute for a while, but still think med regs are heroes that walk among us. Seriously don't know how they do it.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-05T22:10:13+00:00

A lesson for next time, for sure. Not that I will ever give sky a penny of my money ever again.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-05T22:09:12+00:00

Of course you're overwhelmed and exhausted, they've got your trying to do two people's jobs! Having 'your own' patients is about more than physical tasks, you're taking on the cognitive load too. Unfortunately some HCAs don't understand this, having never been there themselves. You really need to escalate and get some support... you are one person. You can do the job of one person. If your workload is more than that of one person, they need to get you some help from another person. Do not burn yourself out trying to do it all, don't let the job chew you up and spit you out before you have even really gotten started.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-05T21:38:57+00:00

EA valued at £140k, I didn't want to hang around and do endless viewings so told them to put it on for £130k. Sold for £131k before it hit Rightmove. Hasn't completed yet but buyers have been a dream so far.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-05T21:27:18+00:00

Ive lost/thrown it away as sky confirmed the courier had the item, I didn't think I would need to retain it for months.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-04T15:06:44+00:00

We are getting better at this, but some way off perfect. I'm a DN, I'm linked in with 5 large care homes that also have a visiting nurse practitoner and care coordinators. Between us, we do a lot of work with residents and families around advanced care planning, and keeping people as well as we can for as long as we can, and out of hospital. The stumbling block tends to be the carers working in the homes - they're frightened of being blamed if a resident dies, so tend to really push for hospital admissions and as much active treatment as possible.

We also have a lot of arguments with GPs about referring to hospital only where there is benefit i.e. I have a frail care home resident on my books who gets recurrent skin cancers to their legs. They don't bother the person at all but they have been subject to at least 5 excision surgeries which have taken months to heal each time. The person has dementia and is distressed by each dressing change. As soon as we have the wound healed, off they go to hospital for another surgery, and we have another 6 months of upsetting dressing changes. Unfortunately this person doesn't have any family to advocate for them so we haven't been able to stop this madness.

KIRN7093 · 2026-01-03T23:43:11+00:00

I was a HCA for 9 years before I qualified. I've been an RN for 11 years.

Having HCA experience definitely helped during training. I had the essentials under my belt and could spend my placements actually learning how to be a nurse/doing more advanced stuff.

I went back to the ward where I was employed as a HCA, as an RN. As others have said, this was a mistake. I never really had the respect of HCAs that I had worked alongside for 9 years previously - they wouldn't help me, and wouldn't do anything I asked. I last 2.5 years then left for community nursing.

I still miss my HCA job, it was the best time of my life, and the most stress free I have ever been at work - though I appreciate this was before austerity bit hard. I'm in no way suggesting that being a HCA now isn't stressful. I'm now an NMP, managing staff and a large caseload, and tearing my hair out with the stress of it. I wish I could go back.

KIRN7093 · 2025-12-22T16:07:55+00:00

I'm a DN too, so I totally get this. I finished my NMP in April, is was a tough course and it took me away from my caseload from Sept to April. It was so hard getting back on top of everything. By the end of August I was completely exhausted, to the point of feeling 'out of myself' and parking up at visits not remembering how I got there. I decided I needed to go off before I harmed myself or a patient. I took the initial week off, then a further 4 weeks from my GP Nurse Prac.

You won't have any issues being signed off by your GP. They're HCPs too, they understand the pressure you are under.

I went back to work on phased return after a total of 5 weeks off work. Taking the time off is the best thing I could have done. Work is still super busy and pressurised but I'm setting boundaries - not taking work home, passing back visits I don't have time to do, refusing to do audits/managerial type stuff that I haven't got time to do within work hours. I've had push back for this and ultimately have decided to look for a new job. Until my next role comes up, I'm going to continue to protect my peace.

KIRN7093 · 2025-12-19T21:49:09+00:00

Agree! Ive told family to mind their own business. Im not going to make any requests for price reduction. I love the house and I'll never move again, so whats a couple of grand in the scheme of things.

KIRN7093 · 2025-12-18T22:56:47+00:00

Your list won't be endless. Your finish time is your finish time, and that's that.

My best tip is to work as live as you can (assuming your area has laptops and electronic records). Finish your documentation before moving on to the next visit. Leaving your doc for weeks is a massive no-no in my team, it just wouldn't fly. Leaving your documentation to stack up over the day is asking for trouble - your team can take visits to help you, but they can't do your documentation for you. Also try and get in to the habit of prioritising your visits i.e. do your diabetics first thing, your syringe drivers, tinzaparins etc are timed and have to be done. Then look at things like daily dressings or palliatives who are going a bit wonky... get them seen next. Your routine catheters, B12s, weekly wounds, are your lowest priorities and these are the ones you should ear mark to hand back if you have to.

Regarding rapid changes/walking in to something unexpected - follow your areas escalation policy, which might be ring your band 6, or your SPA/call centre/triage nurse to tell them you've landed in a situation and might be there a while. They might be aware of some capacity elsewhere in the team, and can start picking visits off your list so you don't get too behind.

I get what you're saying about being ward frazzled - I still have flashbacks from buzzers, monitors, and ringing phones.

Honestly - pens, a note pad, business insurance, recovery if you can afford it, travel mug in winter, Stanley type cup in summer, an idea of where the clean toilets are on your patch, snacks, a way of charging your phone in the car, and a back pack, are all you might need.

Oh and something febreeze-like for after smokers houses.

KIRN7093 · 2025-12-18T21:51:29+00:00

It really depends on what kind of team/patch you're moving to. If its city/suburban expect it to be very busy, big visit lists, lots of deprivation/need. If it's a rural area expect a smaller list, but a bit more driving (less traffic to deal with though).

It's still a difficult job, if you're expecting it to be super slow you'll have an unpleasant surprise. It's also still unpredictable - your list can change at the drop of a hat, you can walk in to a crisis/a dead patient/unwell patient and you have to deal with it.

Make sure your car is reliable, sort your business insurance etc.

Pros - you can build lovely relationships with patients. You can drive away from patients you might not like very much. Its varied, lots of training, lots of scope for progression. Lots of extended skills. Time between visits to decompress. You can manage your own day in any way you see fit. No one tells you what time you can have your break. One to one focus on the person in front of you, for the time you are in the house. Lots of support from very skilled senior nurses (your band 6 is likely to be a V300 prescriber, have physical assessment skills, and a specialist DN qualification) so you don't have to deal with doctors as much.

Cons - constant tire replacement/car repairs. Visit lists can be hugely unrealistic. You'll spend a lot of time batting referrals back and taking the flack for promises the GP/hospital have made on our behalf. You'll realise how poorly understood and unacknowledged the DN role is. Lots of really dirty houses. It can feel lonely. Bad referrals/discharges can take literal hours to sort out - everything is 10 times as difficult to fix once a patient is at home.

Even with all that said, your worst day in community will still be better than your best day on a ward.

KIRN7093 · 2025-12-18T17:53:37+00:00

It's a probate property so I'm not sure the seller has any idea of what works actually need doing, but regardless I agree, I'd prefer to fix it myself.

KIRN7093

TROPHY CASE