Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WE NEED 1 , 500 MORE NURSES
Patient safety fears as chief slams shortage
PATIENT safety is at risk due to a shortage of 1,500 nurses in Northern Ireland, it was claimed last night.
A union chief said stretched staff fear mistakes are being made as they struggle to cope amid dwindling numbers.
Royal College of Nursing deputy director Garrett Martin spoke out after it emerged a health trust is paying £100,000 for an agency nurse.
He said: “Staff are reporting errors, near misses or incidents involving patient safety.”
THE crisis in nursing has been caused by years of cost-savings and inadequate planning, it has been claimed.
The Northern Trust has admitted spending up to £100,000 a year for some agency staff due to “regional and national nursing shortages”.
And the Royal College of Nursing in Northern Ireland has warned the issue is putting patients at risk.
Its deputy director Garrett Martin said there are currently “over 1,500 nursing vacancies within the HSC and at least that number in the independent sector”.
He added the shortages “and the cost of deploying nursing staff via nursing agencies has reached unprecedented levels within the HSC – £23.5m in 2016/17”.
Mr Martin said: “While large figures are being reported in relation to agency nurses’ pay a significant proportion of this goes to the agency, not the nurse.
“The current situation has been created over a number of years through inadequate workforce planning and short-term cost-savings measures that have resulted in a reduction in the number of pre-registration nursing students.
“Alongside these cuts a series of workforce control measures were put in place by Trusts.
“Decisions were made to slow recruitment and freeze vacancies denying nurses permanent posts, any career pathway and their entitlement to overtime payments. This created a lack of financial stability and security.
“The majority of nurses are working unpaid hours in an attempt to provide the best care for patients and many have reported they are concerned there are not enough staff to do their jobs properly and are reporting errors, near misses or incidents involving patient safety.
“Pressures within the system have led many nurses to make career decisions to leave full-time employment and work for nurse banks or agencies, or to leave the profession.”
Mr Martin said nurses have faced a “real-term decrease” in salaries of 14% as well as being paid less than their colleagues in the UK.
He added: “Current levels of expenditure on agency staff are unsupportable but the simple fact is the health service in Northern Ireland could not currently
function without them.”