Hello the real world !
If you bother to look at nurse training now, you will find that students are taught at degree level about lots of medical issues, unfortunately basic things like equipment care, communication and co-operation with other departments are overlooked or under emphasised.
Nursing staff are sent out qualified with little hospital experience and unrealistic ideas of the job they are expected to do by the NHS.
I have often been told “cleaning equipment is not my job” by junior and senior nursing staff.
The HCA is now expected to do all the menial nursing tasks. Gone are the days of the dedicated and practical SEN's and wards with more than two trained staff on duty at once.
Perhaps the answer might lie in some input into the Health Care Assistants training and the NVQ schemes.
It would be more a fruitful avenue of investigation than the blame culture and buck passing I can read here, then the endless paper treadmill may serve the use for which it was designed.
Rather than fire fighting we train HCA's to clean equipment so they don't break it, investment of time can pay off in the long run.
