God help the NHS. Someone needs to.

I had a bloody awful shift yesterday. Myself and my colleague were on the verge of tears and very nearly walked out. 8 post surgical patients each on the early and the late shift. I was on a 9-19.00h shift, she was on a long day. She was on her own after 7pm until the night shift turned up at 20.30. At that stage there were 14 patients on the ward, 1 with an epidural, 1 with an epipleural and 2 with PCAs. There were patients on IV antibiotics, patients with chest drains and 1 with hardly any blood pressure at all. The NHS fucking stinks. It's going to take something really bad to happen before anything is done about it. The patients I look after have had major surgery and things can go wrong. Fortunately there was nothing serious yesterday, but this is going to be continuing for the foreseeable future. I need to get out because every day I work on that godforsaken ward I am putting my registration in danger. I know it's selfish but I don't want to be the one to make THE mistake. To be too busy to do half hourly obs on a patient. To be too tired to remember that someone needs an IV at a particular time. The ward I work on is an excellent ward with intelligent and dedicated staff. We are dropping like flies. The NHS is sucking every little bit of dedication and drive out of us. We are unable to be the nurses that we aspire to be. Thanks Cameron and cronies. It's great for you that it's us that feel the pain and guilt if we injure someone, or worse. But you put us there. You're guilty, and I won't forget that.