Health watchdog warns over shortage of nurses
AN official watchdog has issued an unprecedented warning to the Department of Health over the severe shortage of nurses in Northern Ireland
The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) has told the department it is failing in almost every area it had reviewed.
SDLP health spokesman Mark H Durkan said it was a significant development.
“This confirms what many people working in health and social care have known for a long time — that we are in the middle of a very serious nursing shortage that is having an impact on care,” he said.
“Frontline health service staff are working themselves to the point of exhaustion to maintain the current level of care they provide. Nurses, doctors and other staff are fully stretched and that isn’t a sustainable position in the long-term.”
Last month it was revealed that cash-strapped hospitals and clinics are paying up to £120 an hour for private agency nurses just to keep facilities operational.
The department also said that it recognised that the position was unsustainable in the longterm.
The RQIA said its concerns had arisen from five inspections of hospitals and nursing homes. Its report on the issue says that the cumulative effect of the nursing shortage was, in some cases, leading to less effective care provision for patients.
Janice Smyth, director of the Royal College of Nursing, said the fact that the inspectorate had recognised there was a problem “was reassuring to the profession”.
“The college has been raising concerns around safety and effective nurse staffing for some time and to nurses it would appear that people aren’t as concerned about that as they should be,” she said.
The department said it was taking a range of measures to address the situation, including a workforce review.
It added: “Workforce pressures are one of the deep-seated challenges facing health and social care — challenges that can only be fully addressed through transformation of the system.”