Snotty Nurse!

[Ellie-Louise]

I went for my blood test yesterday and while the nurse was doing it I just thought I would ask her if the surgery took blood for a private test? (I was thinking Blue Horizon etc. but didn’t tell her that).

I probably didn’t word the question properly because she pointedly told me that if I wanted that then I should make an appointment at so and so, make an appointment myself and and get one done.

This surgery is the NHS!

You will have to pay, they cost around £50 and you are having 2 done here today. (I knew that because the doc was also checking on my cholesterol). So I told her I already knew that I had to pay for them.

It was only later on that I suddenly realised that she probably thought I was asking about the whole caboodle and not just a blood take.

But the snotty way she implied that they were doing me an enormously expensive favour made me feel about 2” tall.

[shaws Administrator]

She is in the wrong profession i.e. should be helpful/supporting of people who're look for some advice from the 'professional if they have any worries of how best to recover/improve their health.'.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

Don't take ANY blame for this. However poorly worded you think your question.

A proper answer would have meant engaging with you and making sure they understand before answering.

A patient shouldn't have to be qualified in asking questions but a nurse should be qualified in answering them.

[greygoose in reply to helvella]

Well said!

[JumpJiving]

I similarly asked a nurse at my GP practice if they could do blood draws for me when I want a private blood test (I normally get them done at my local NHS hospital's phlebotomy department). I really wish I hadn't asked that question. At first she didn't understand what I was asking. Then she checked with a GP who also seemed to not understand what I wanted (the nurse probably told her incorrectly). I then got challenged about what it was I wanted testing. When next I went to the GP about something else, I got challenged about it again. After explaining a few times, she finally seemed to grasp the concept (so much for teaching practices being innovative) and said that yes, they could consider doing blood draws. However, she isn't a partner in the practice and has demonstrated that she is not interested in finding the cause of things, just in dishing out drugs that may not even be good for me (she has no idea about interactions with thyroid etc), so I neither trust her, nor trust that the partners would agree were she to raise it with them. It was altogether a stressful series of interactions resulting from what I thought was a simple, innocent question about blood draws.

Needless to say, I have gone back to getting bloods drawn at my local hospital, either at phlebotomy, or at haematology when waiting there for a relative to have a procedure - the haematology (more accurately oncology & haematology) department is an oasis of calm, common sense, and helpfulness, in what is otherwise a chaotic hospital.

I do have an appointment at the GP in a couple of weeks time, but I am intentionally seeing a different GP, and generally avoid the place whenever possible these days.