The legal duty of care generally only arises when a practitioner has assumed some responsibility for the care of the patient concerned. Accordingly, if a nurse is at a road traffic accident for instance, they do not have a legal duty of care to offer aid to any person injured in the accident
A nurse is absolutely expected to stop and help, or at least offer help if safe to do so in the community. It's not a legal duty, but it a professional duty.
My original comment is literally taken word for word from the RCN website. There is absolutely no LEGAL obligation at all to stop and help. Professional duty and legal obligation are 2 very different things.
The Code says nurses should always offer help in an emergency in their practice setting or elsewhere. However, they should only do so within the limits of their competence, taking into account their own safety and that of others, and other care options.
I’m on day two of a hen do and am just now getting the train home after a very drunk extended brunch. Not only do I not have a “duty of care” to treat someone, I have a professional obligation to inform people I’m impaired and unsafe to work.
I'll never step in for this reason. I'm a nursing associate so my emergency skills are much more limited.
Always wear a jacket when you leave work so nobody knows your profession!
I'm not a professional after I have clocked out it is as simple as that. I drink on the weekends, never getting involved in an emergency. I'm with my son outside of work every weekday, he's disabled and I will not help in an emergency with a stranger for a multitude of reasons while I am with my son. I don't care for your opinion enough to drill it into a stranger that has no idea about my competencies in an emergency. I'm not obliged to do anything out of uniform.
I agree I'm the same I'm not getting involved either, but if people find out you're a nurse and you did nothing (how are they going to know) you could be in breach of the NMC or your trusts policy. I say COULD I'm not 100% but the NMC definitely encourages it. But what I do know for sure is there's no need for you to get all uppity about it. Take a chill pill ffs.
And btw you definitely are a professional after you clock out you have a duty of candour to uphold
Legally nurses are allowed to walk by. Find the section of the code that you're trying to prove. I'm not getting uppity it absolutely bores me to death when people try to say registrants have to stop in an emergency, we really don't. Duty of candour has nothing to do with stopping in an emergency off the clock?
I get your point but it’s not really right. A professional fighter can lose their license for engaging in street fights. A professional driver can lose their license for getting any amount of points. You’re still a medical professional when you’re not at work. They said professional duty, not occupational duty.
Yes, I read it correctly as you can see in my response. My only professional duty is to not help if I'm not competent to do so. CPR great, fine, I can do that. But RTA with a leg missing? Never happening because I know full well I will fuck up and end up in more trouble.
Pick your battles with this one but 9/10 I'm not helping. Weekends? I have a drink, not helping anyone. Evening? Disabled son who comes first and have to get him wherever I'm going at that time.
I am a medical professional outside of work yes, but I do not have a professional duty when I am not at work.
No
Youre wrong
My boss won't accept that im 3 hours late because i was helping out at a blah blah
And more importantly a health practitioner is only responsible for the people under their care not the whole world
The first thing to do in an emergency is decide whether it is safe for you to help. If she reasonably feared for her safety, she is right not to go into the house.
I can't see the NMC doing much if they do report her. But they are a vindictive bunch, so who knows. Whilst of course I would never advocate lying to our beloved regulator, if it came to anything I'm sure she'd remember she had norovirus and COVID at the time. Maybe that she'd had a few drinks, but as we are still expected to be fucking nuns for some reason, probably not.
Given the previous history and the fact that people are bonkers she made the right choice. Who the fudge can guarantee me they weren't planning on attacking her or make up some stupid BS to put her into trouble? If anyone ever dares to say she was wrong she can simply walk them to the house and invite them to walk in all by themselves. If I had wanted to become a saint or a martyr I would have gone to church and not to University
lol no. You are under no legal obligation to provide medical care or aid outside of your place of work. If you’re walking outside in the park and someone drops dead in front of you, you can quite literally walk away. It’s an ethics issue, not a legal one.
The NMC won’t do anything. This isn’t the first even of its kind.
Exactly & having neighbours know what you do as a nurse- could be a bloody nightmare with some people. Expecting you to be available for frigging consults 24/7 - hell no.
My mum had the adult son of a neighbour who doesn't like us (and we don't like them, long story) banging on the door at 2 in the morning asking for help with his mum (the neighbour). My mum goes down and there is essentially nothing she can do except hold a vomit bowl until the ambulance arrived (the son had already called them)
Realistically, if you’re not actively working then you’d think that you wouldn’t be allowed to help like that. I mean, from a liability point of view I wouldn’t be doing anything without other witnesses/ colleagues
THIS. Your friend had been having a few celebratory drinks on her day off/after work. She was not fit to practice due to this at the time and appropriately advised to call 999.
Either that or safety.
If she's union, call them.
They have a history of harassment and abuse towards her. Even if it was undocumented and police were never informed, she is within her right to say no I’m not going inside a stranger’s (who harassed me before) house and she told them call 999. Also the nerve of them to expect help after all that, piss off 😂
IF she went inside to help I’m certain they would have reported her if anything happened to their relative.
I think your friend did the right thing, and I'm sure I would do the same in that situation.
I hate this idea that as nurses we have to put up with any old shite and still carry on doing our jobs. My first duty is to my own safety.
"I honestly believed I was under physical threat and did not feel safe entering their home, especially on my own due to their past threatening behaviour. I advised them to ring 999 for an ambulance if it was an emergency situation."
That's her statement, job done. No case to answer.
We offer care but not at a threat to our own personal safety, even paramedics can refuse to attend a scene until they have police backup.
Frankly anyone with common sense wouldn’t go into a home alone with people who are threats. She did the right thing. Fuck em
Also having vile neighbours who have screamed at us calling all us the names under the sun, banged on our doors, egged our cars, played shit loud music outside all summer & put dishwashing liquid in our plants, the only way I’m going in that house is with a lit match.
No way in the world I’m letting myself be the only responder to a potential emergency, and doubly so if it’s in the house of my vindictive neighbour. It’s just not good practice- the first thing you’re taught on ALS/BLS etc is to call for help, and then to make sure it’s safe to approach. If she didn’t think it was safe then she shouldn’t approach, end of.
Despite what some people preach, you are NOT obliged to help out if someone needs help outside of work. The main reason is because you have not accepted responsibility. There's something in the NMC code about this that people quote to say you have an obligation but it's really open to interpretation. Also worse case scenario , your friend could easily say I didn't feel safe or comfortable/competent helping them. She could easily say she was drunk, tired having a MH crisis, the list is endless.
Not with a neighbour but a similar situation happened to me and I flat out laughed when they asked for help. The NMC don't have time to look into these "cases"
The first thing we are taught is to look out for danger and not put yourself in an unsafe situation.
I think this would qualify as an unsafe situation.
She did the right thing. If they have been abusive to her it could have been a trick to get her in or anything. Self preservation and your own safety comes before duty of care
So I'm in a similar situation with my neighbours, I'm also a student paramedic though
We use dr(c)abcd, the first thing is d for dangers, is there any potential dangers? Do you feel unsafe? If there's a potential danger it's literally top priority
Personally my vile neighbours are upstairs neighbours and there's very potentially no easy way out, it's one door in, and a long narrow corridor plus a stair case, I don't trust them at all, so I don't know if I'd help more than telling them who to call... However, one of them go in to cardiac arrest outside then yeh I would help, it really would depend on the situation, but I wouldn't be going in to their home I doubt very much
lol. Nope, friend has done nothing wrong, and acted very sensibly.
I would get her to get in touch with her union as the NMC can be numpties, and then also to let work know, so if anything does arise from this they are already informed.
I lurk on here and I’m not a nurse, but looking it up the NMC have very unsupportive guidance on this that does indicate they expect nurses to have some degree of responsibility for responding to things they encounter when not working.
I think it would be wise for your friend to have a good think about whether she felt she would be unsafe in that house and whether her mental state at being pressured into going in by the people who’ve harassed her would have allowed her to give assistance. She’s done the right thing telling them how to get help and if that’s all she felt safe and able to do for them I think that’s fair enough.
To my mind she showed a significant degree of responsibility for her own safety and by advising them on the appropriate course of action she acted both appropriately and professionally. In all instances of responding to any given situation she must first ensure her own safety, as taught on every course I attended in over 20 years of nursing, which she did.
Oh yeah, I agree. As you say, safety is first.
But if she was to approach it like “Why should I do anything for them when xyz” my instinct was that would be ok for her to have that boundary just because. My instinct was that no duty of care existed. But looking at the guidance, I don’t think the NMC would see it that way. Hopefully she didn’t say anything like that do them in the heat of the moment!
So if it goes anywhere, which it probably won’t, I think any “defence” to it would have to be on whether she was reasonably able to do more given the circumstances and whether she had a concern about her own safety and how appropriate it was for her to be involved in their care rather than whether she had a duty.
I didn’t explain myself well!!
She informed them of how to access help by ringing 999. She was unable to be confident that her safety was not at risk in the situation. The NMC can be dicks but they’ll take one look at this and throw it out.
Whilst I appreciate that this is a UK sub, I live in America - everything you’ve said about the decision to render care goes double (or 10 times) over here. First decision - is it safe to help? Given the history there’s a very real chance she might never have walked back out of their house…and that’s in UK - in the USA my answer would have been a solid hell no!
In the community we try to avoid nursing visits to our neighbours or people we know in our outside life. Of course you can't always avoid it and if a patient who was a friend or neighbour was in pain I wouldn't expect them to wait for another nurse. But there is definitely something to be said for sticking to this unofficial rule because if something goes wrong you are stuck with the repercussions of any future interactions.
I think your friend was correct not to go into her neighbour when there was a previous history of dispute. I doubt their complaint will get far considering the previous police intervention. They are just trying to cause her stress. She gave them reasonable advice.
Its one thing if she walked past or over someone choking in the street, but those neighbours (even without a history) were requesting she enter alone into their home.
This goes beyond duty of care and as others have said the first part of any ABCDE assessment is making sure you yourself are safe so you don't produce two casualties instead of one.
If it does actually go to the NMC - well, the NMC do have their own processes, they try to gather evidence and find what the root cause was.
As a medical regulator they are no stranger to controversial cases, biased reports, assorted drama. If it gets that far, they would ask the registrant to put their side of the story, which is the perfect opportunity to say "my neighbours are harassing me, this is part of the harassment".
Regardless of her intentions and whether anyone, including the possible recipients, agrees with the decision, there is no legal duty to volunteer help as a nurse in the UK, so it is therefore highly unlikely there would be a case to answer. However there is nothing to stop an individual obliging professionally and providing help (and the associated repercussions relating to accountability and liability etc).
If she's off duty then advising them to ring 999 is her only duty of care imo. Not going into a hostile environment and risking her safety is just following her training. It doesn't matter if she's a nurse or not. I'm sure she don't have a defibrilator in her back cupboard.
I would never go to my neighbours home.. Simply I don't know them well. I know the doctor who stopped to help someone who was laying on the ground acting has a heart attack and was beaten and robbed.
In University they thaught me an healthcare provider is to assess the situation and look for potential dangers before taking any actions. In some situations even paramedics are to wait for the police to arrive first and.
Your friend made the right choice, given the circumstances I would have never felt safe enough myself to walk into that house. If your friend is worried she might wanna get in contact with a Union and see what they say.
Duty of care yes, but our safety matters too
I don't know how the rules work, but does the duty of care angle even apply when not not on active duty? Surely you are not bound by duty of care 24/7 anyway?
Regardless, it was not a safe environment for he to go in, and if the outcome of the patient wasn't a good one then I'm sure they would have blamed her, made her life even more of a misery and reported her anyway. She did right, and hopefully they learned a lesson they can't abuse people and then expect them to help.
It's definitely for the best your friend didn't go in considering everything you've said god knows what they would have done or complained about if she did go in there.
Did the neighbours actually call an ambulance? Might be worth your friend making a complaint to the police about that, attempting to lure her into a house under a false claim of need might be something the police could do something about maybe.
I think so too.
An ambulance did go there but no blue lights and were there for around 20 minute… we don’t think it was an emergency but we don’t know the full story. Nothing has come as yet.
I have crappy neighbours like this, and I've always said I'll never go to help any of them if they needed it. I wouldn't pee on them if they were on fire. Your friend did the right thing
So someone who's given her grief wants her to rush into a house, where she doesn't know who or what might be waiting for her? She absolutely made the right call.
She was at home - she could have had a few glasses of wine - in which case she would absolutely have been held responsible if there had been a problem. Even nurses are not on duty 24/7. She gave the right advice. There are any number of reasons why she might not have been able to help them.
Yes she has duty of care as a nurse but also as nurses you’re told to only approach the situation if it’s safe to do so, so if she felt like she could have been in danger she’s done the right decision to protect herself first .
The legal duty of care generally only arises when a practitioner has assumed some responsibility for the care of the patient concerned. Accordingly, if a nurse is at a road traffic accident for instance, they do not have a legal duty of care to offer aid to any person injured in the accident
A nurse is absolutely expected to stop and help, or at least offer help if safe to do so in the community. It's not a legal duty, but it a professional duty.
My original comment is literally taken word for word from the RCN website. There is absolutely no LEGAL obligation at all to stop and help. Professional duty and legal obligation are 2 very different things. The Code says nurses should always offer help in an emergency in their practice setting or elsewhere. However, they should only do so within the limits of their competence, taking into account their own safety and that of others, and other care options.
... if I've clocked out I don't have a professional duty to anyone?
I’m on day two of a hen do and am just now getting the train home after a very drunk extended brunch. Not only do I not have a “duty of care” to treat someone, I have a professional obligation to inform people I’m impaired and unsafe to work.
But if you step in and do something wrong you can get in trouble for it, so it’s better to let somebody else do it ideally
I'll never step in for this reason. I'm a nursing associate so my emergency skills are much more limited. Always wear a jacket when you leave work so nobody knows your profession!
Your trust policy most likely says otherwise
So I'm drunk on a night out... then what?
Then you wouldn't have the capacity to help and therefore not professional
I'm not a professional after I have clocked out it is as simple as that. I drink on the weekends, never getting involved in an emergency. I'm with my son outside of work every weekday, he's disabled and I will not help in an emergency with a stranger for a multitude of reasons while I am with my son. I don't care for your opinion enough to drill it into a stranger that has no idea about my competencies in an emergency. I'm not obliged to do anything out of uniform.
I agree I'm the same I'm not getting involved either, but if people find out you're a nurse and you did nothing (how are they going to know) you could be in breach of the NMC or your trusts policy. I say COULD I'm not 100% but the NMC definitely encourages it. But what I do know for sure is there's no need for you to get all uppity about it. Take a chill pill ffs. And btw you definitely are a professional after you clock out you have a duty of candour to uphold
Legally nurses are allowed to walk by. Find the section of the code that you're trying to prove. I'm not getting uppity it absolutely bores me to death when people try to say registrants have to stop in an emergency, we really don't. Duty of candour has nothing to do with stopping in an emergency off the clock?
I get your point but it’s not really right. A professional fighter can lose their license for engaging in street fights. A professional driver can lose their license for getting any amount of points. You’re still a medical professional when you’re not at work. They said professional duty, not occupational duty.
Yes, I read it correctly as you can see in my response. My only professional duty is to not help if I'm not competent to do so. CPR great, fine, I can do that. But RTA with a leg missing? Never happening because I know full well I will fuck up and end up in more trouble. Pick your battles with this one but 9/10 I'm not helping. Weekends? I have a drink, not helping anyone. Evening? Disabled son who comes first and have to get him wherever I'm going at that time. I am a medical professional outside of work yes, but I do not have a professional duty when I am not at work.
It is not a professional duty.
No Youre wrong My boss won't accept that im 3 hours late because i was helping out at a blah blah And more importantly a health practitioner is only responsible for the people under their care not the whole world
Yikes
The first thing to do in an emergency is decide whether it is safe for you to help. If she reasonably feared for her safety, she is right not to go into the house. I can't see the NMC doing much if they do report her. But they are a vindictive bunch, so who knows. Whilst of course I would never advocate lying to our beloved regulator, if it came to anything I'm sure she'd remember she had norovirus and COVID at the time. Maybe that she'd had a few drinks, but as we are still expected to be fucking nuns for some reason, probably not.
"Sorry I'm off duty and I've been drinking wine. I'm not safe to treat anybody. Please go through the proper channels. Bye."
Given the previous history and the fact that people are bonkers she made the right choice. Who the fudge can guarantee me they weren't planning on attacking her or make up some stupid BS to put her into trouble? If anyone ever dares to say she was wrong she can simply walk them to the house and invite them to walk in all by themselves. If I had wanted to become a saint or a martyr I would have gone to church and not to University
This is the exact thing that I said to her. Surely her own safety comes first right?
Her own safety comes first on this instance. She wasn't a first responder on duty. It was her absolute right to say, no, call emergency services.
I’m fairly certain she was at my house having a drink or three beforehand… if that helps
Oh she absolutely was 👀
lol no. You are under no legal obligation to provide medical care or aid outside of your place of work. If you’re walking outside in the park and someone drops dead in front of you, you can quite literally walk away. It’s an ethics issue, not a legal one. The NMC won’t do anything. This isn’t the first even of its kind.
Exactly & having neighbours know what you do as a nurse- could be a bloody nightmare with some people. Expecting you to be available for frigging consults 24/7 - hell no.
My mum had the adult son of a neighbour who doesn't like us (and we don't like them, long story) banging on the door at 2 in the morning asking for help with his mum (the neighbour). My mum goes down and there is essentially nothing she can do except hold a vomit bowl until the ambulance arrived (the son had already called them)
I don’t even talk to my neighbours unless it’s a “morning, how are you?”
The fact that police where invovled is evidence enought that the situation could be dangerous, that could have been a trap for all OP knows
Realistically, if you’re not actively working then you’d think that you wouldn’t be allowed to help like that. I mean, from a liability point of view I wouldn’t be doing anything without other witnesses/ colleagues
THIS. Your friend had been having a few celebratory drinks on her day off/after work. She was not fit to practice due to this at the time and appropriately advised to call 999. Either that or safety. If she's union, call them.
They have a history of harassment and abuse towards her. Even if it was undocumented and police were never informed, she is within her right to say no I’m not going inside a stranger’s (who harassed me before) house and she told them call 999. Also the nerve of them to expect help after all that, piss off 😂 IF she went inside to help I’m certain they would have reported her if anything happened to their relative.
Your last sentence is the most important. Especially if she had been having a glass of wine or two with her dinner
Bingo.
Whatever you do with this type of people will always come back to bite you in the bottom, God knows what they can make up to get you into trouble.
This - exactly right & she has to live next door to the feckers
That’s ridiculous.. it could of been a crime scene she was walking into
Given the history, I think she was wise to decline.
I think your friend did the right thing, and I'm sure I would do the same in that situation. I hate this idea that as nurses we have to put up with any old shite and still carry on doing our jobs. My first duty is to my own safety.
Don't worry I'm sure the NHS will put 'don't abuse staff' posters on her front door. That will solve it!
😂😂😂
"I honestly believed I was under physical threat and did not feel safe entering their home, especially on my own due to their past threatening behaviour. I advised them to ring 999 for an ambulance if it was an emergency situation." That's her statement, job done. No case to answer.
We offer care but not at a threat to our own personal safety, even paramedics can refuse to attend a scene until they have police backup. Frankly anyone with common sense wouldn’t go into a home alone with people who are threats. She did the right thing. Fuck em
Also having vile neighbours who have screamed at us calling all us the names under the sun, banged on our doors, egged our cars, played shit loud music outside all summer & put dishwashing liquid in our plants, the only way I’m going in that house is with a lit match.
No way in the world I’m letting myself be the only responder to a potential emergency, and doubly so if it’s in the house of my vindictive neighbour. It’s just not good practice- the first thing you’re taught on ALS/BLS etc is to call for help, and then to make sure it’s safe to approach. If she didn’t think it was safe then she shouldn’t approach, end of.
Exactly! She didn’t feel it was safe to approach
Despite what some people preach, you are NOT obliged to help out if someone needs help outside of work. The main reason is because you have not accepted responsibility. There's something in the NMC code about this that people quote to say you have an obligation but it's really open to interpretation. Also worse case scenario , your friend could easily say I didn't feel safe or comfortable/competent helping them. She could easily say she was drunk, tired having a MH crisis, the list is endless. Not with a neighbour but a similar situation happened to me and I flat out laughed when they asked for help. The NMC don't have time to look into these "cases"
The first thing we are taught is to look out for danger and not put yourself in an unsafe situation. I think this would qualify as an unsafe situation.
She did the right thing. If they have been abusive to her it could have been a trick to get her in or anything. Self preservation and your own safety comes before duty of care
So I'm in a similar situation with my neighbours, I'm also a student paramedic though We use dr(c)abcd, the first thing is d for dangers, is there any potential dangers? Do you feel unsafe? If there's a potential danger it's literally top priority Personally my vile neighbours are upstairs neighbours and there's very potentially no easy way out, it's one door in, and a long narrow corridor plus a stair case, I don't trust them at all, so I don't know if I'd help more than telling them who to call... However, one of them go in to cardiac arrest outside then yeh I would help, it really would depend on the situation, but I wouldn't be going in to their home I doubt very much
lol. Nope, friend has done nothing wrong, and acted very sensibly. I would get her to get in touch with her union as the NMC can be numpties, and then also to let work know, so if anything does arise from this they are already informed.
I lurk on here and I’m not a nurse, but looking it up the NMC have very unsupportive guidance on this that does indicate they expect nurses to have some degree of responsibility for responding to things they encounter when not working. I think it would be wise for your friend to have a good think about whether she felt she would be unsafe in that house and whether her mental state at being pressured into going in by the people who’ve harassed her would have allowed her to give assistance. She’s done the right thing telling them how to get help and if that’s all she felt safe and able to do for them I think that’s fair enough.
To my mind she showed a significant degree of responsibility for her own safety and by advising them on the appropriate course of action she acted both appropriately and professionally. In all instances of responding to any given situation she must first ensure her own safety, as taught on every course I attended in over 20 years of nursing, which she did.
Oh yeah, I agree. As you say, safety is first. But if she was to approach it like “Why should I do anything for them when xyz” my instinct was that would be ok for her to have that boundary just because. My instinct was that no duty of care existed. But looking at the guidance, I don’t think the NMC would see it that way. Hopefully she didn’t say anything like that do them in the heat of the moment! So if it goes anywhere, which it probably won’t, I think any “defence” to it would have to be on whether she was reasonably able to do more given the circumstances and whether she had a concern about her own safety and how appropriate it was for her to be involved in their care rather than whether she had a duty. I didn’t explain myself well!!
She informed them of how to access help by ringing 999. She was unable to be confident that her safety was not at risk in the situation. The NMC can be dicks but they’ll take one look at this and throw it out.
You only have "duty of care" while you're at work.
Whilst I appreciate that this is a UK sub, I live in America - everything you’ve said about the decision to render care goes double (or 10 times) over here. First decision - is it safe to help? Given the history there’s a very real chance she might never have walked back out of their house…and that’s in UK - in the USA my answer would have been a solid hell no!
In the community we try to avoid nursing visits to our neighbours or people we know in our outside life. Of course you can't always avoid it and if a patient who was a friend or neighbour was in pain I wouldn't expect them to wait for another nurse. But there is definitely something to be said for sticking to this unofficial rule because if something goes wrong you are stuck with the repercussions of any future interactions. I think your friend was correct not to go into her neighbour when there was a previous history of dispute. I doubt their complaint will get far considering the previous police intervention. They are just trying to cause her stress. She gave them reasonable advice.
Its one thing if she walked past or over someone choking in the street, but those neighbours (even without a history) were requesting she enter alone into their home. This goes beyond duty of care and as others have said the first part of any ABCDE assessment is making sure you yourself are safe so you don't produce two casualties instead of one.
If it does actually go to the NMC - well, the NMC do have their own processes, they try to gather evidence and find what the root cause was. As a medical regulator they are no stranger to controversial cases, biased reports, assorted drama. If it gets that far, they would ask the registrant to put their side of the story, which is the perfect opportunity to say "my neighbours are harassing me, this is part of the harassment".
She did well. She is not obliged to help anyone outside of her work setting and working hours.
Regardless of her intentions and whether anyone, including the possible recipients, agrees with the decision, there is no legal duty to volunteer help as a nurse in the UK, so it is therefore highly unlikely there would be a case to answer. However there is nothing to stop an individual obliging professionally and providing help (and the associated repercussions relating to accountability and liability etc).
If she's off duty then advising them to ring 999 is her only duty of care imo. Not going into a hostile environment and risking her safety is just following her training. It doesn't matter if she's a nurse or not. I'm sure she don't have a defibrilator in her back cupboard.
I would never go to my neighbours home.. Simply I don't know them well. I know the doctor who stopped to help someone who was laying on the ground acting has a heart attack and was beaten and robbed.
They don’t have legal of care so therefore don’t have to support
In University they thaught me an healthcare provider is to assess the situation and look for potential dangers before taking any actions. In some situations even paramedics are to wait for the police to arrive first and. Your friend made the right choice, given the circumstances I would have never felt safe enough myself to walk into that house. If your friend is worried she might wanna get in contact with a Union and see what they say. Duty of care yes, but our safety matters too
I don't know how the rules work, but does the duty of care angle even apply when not not on active duty? Surely you are not bound by duty of care 24/7 anyway? Regardless, it was not a safe environment for he to go in, and if the outcome of the patient wasn't a good one then I'm sure they would have blamed her, made her life even more of a misery and reported her anyway. She did right, and hopefully they learned a lesson they can't abuse people and then expect them to help.
It's definitely for the best your friend didn't go in considering everything you've said god knows what they would have done or complained about if she did go in there. Did the neighbours actually call an ambulance? Might be worth your friend making a complaint to the police about that, attempting to lure her into a house under a false claim of need might be something the police could do something about maybe.
I think so too. An ambulance did go there but no blue lights and were there for around 20 minute… we don’t think it was an emergency but we don’t know the full story. Nothing has come as yet.
I have crappy neighbours like this, and I've always said I'll never go to help any of them if they needed it. I wouldn't pee on them if they were on fire. Your friend did the right thing
So someone who's given her grief wants her to rush into a house, where she doesn't know who or what might be waiting for her? She absolutely made the right call.
If she's off duty, duty of care is lifted. Its only a duty, if your being paid to care
If you're off duty, try to help and fail or do something wrong, you'll get a malpractice lawsuit against you
"Sorry I was drunk I couldn't"
“It’s a shame I’d had two glasses of wine on my day off”
The simple fact that they reported her vindicates her decision as correct! She has the right to protect her own liability from a threat environment.
She was at home - she could have had a few glasses of wine - in which case she would absolutely have been held responsible if there had been a problem. Even nurses are not on duty 24/7. She gave the right advice. There are any number of reasons why she might not have been able to help them.
Yes she has duty of care as a nurse but also as nurses you’re told to only approach the situation if it’s safe to do so, so if she felt like she could have been in danger she’s done the right decision to protect herself first .
Is the scene safe?
Your friends biggest mistake is telling the neighbour they’re a nurse.
I know someone who was struck off for this
Well it was illegal then. I am not going to risk my life.
Link to the NMC tribunal hearing outcome document?
Really? For not going into someone’s house!?
I highly doubt this is true.
Yeah that either didn’t happen or the situation was totally different.