Nursing crisis at heart of the NHS
PATIENT safety is being endangered by a record shortage of nurses, it was claimed last night.
The Royal College of Nursing said there are now 43,000 vacancies, creating a “cavernous gap between the numbers on the frontline and what is needed to meet demand”.
Dame Donna Kinnair, chief executive of the RCN, said: “Independent experts had already come together to warn the staffing crisis is the single biggest threat to patient care and NHS leaders are starting to do the same – putting it down in black and white for politicians to see this election.
“Nurse vacancies have grown to a record 43,000 and there is now a cavernous gap between the numbers on the frontline and what is needed to meet demand.
“Those left to pick up the pieces tell us that they cannot provide the quality of care they want and, with so few spread so thinly, burnout is common.
This winter threatens to be the toughest yet, and despite nurses becoming used to these pressures, there is only so much they can do to keep patients safe.”
The 2013 Francis Report that highlighted catastrophic failings of care at Stafford Hospital concluded the main factor was a shortage of nurses.
Managers took steps to prevent similar scandals in the future, but analysis by the RCN shows the extra 9,894 nurses recruited to NHS hospitals is dwarfed by the rise in admissions.
For every extra nurse NHS acute trusts in England managed to recruit in the five years since 2013/14, there were 157 extra hospital admissions.
Last year, the number of extra admissions for every additional nurse taken on had increased to 217.
The warning comes after an NHS Confederation survey found nine in 10 health leaders said staff shortages were putting care at risk.
A separate poll found seven in 10 Britons think there are not enough nurses to provide safe care to patients.
The Society for Acute Medicine has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock demanding urgent action.
Figures show hospitals are running at capacity and ill-equipped to deal with a spike in demand, the society representing medical staff said.
The Department of Health was contacted for a statement.
WHILE the two party leaders locked horns last night, a domestic crisis in the NHS appeared to be looming. We should be concerned by the record number of 43,000 vacancies for nurses in the UK.
This is clearly not an issue of funding because a record amount of money has gone into the NHS under the Conservatives with a Brexit-fuelled boost of £33.9billion extra by 2023/24. In the end, perhaps the truth is more young people need to aspire to this great and skilled profession when they leave school and university.