Give overworked staff support they deserve

Alarming reports on the standard of hospital care for children in east Kent make for extremely worrying reading this week.

Expired medicines, dirty equipment, poor infection control and the under-reporting of incidents are among the catalogue of failures highlighted by inspectors.

But by far the most pressing concern - and perhaps the root cause of many of the issues - is the woeful and dangerous shortage of nurses.

Such was the level of staffing when inspectors visited the QEQM and William Harvey that they ruled them unsafe for young patients.

Put simply, there weren’t enough nurses to ensure the adequate and safe care of sick children.

That any hospital should find themselves in this position in the 21st century, in a developed country, is nothing short of scandalous. And it is anything but the fault of the staff themselves. Inspectors tell how some nurses are working shifts of longer than 14 hours, with few or no breaks, because they are concerned to leave colleagues with so many children to care for.

Others tell how they dread coming to work when staff numbers are low, but do so anyway - even when unwell - so as not to let their team down.

And even while working under this pressure, they remain warm and compassionate throughout, with patients telling inspectors of the kindness and caring nature of hospital staff.

It’s high time they were given the support they need and deserve.

It’s reassuring to see the hospitals trust has already made efforts to recruit more children’s nurses, but the solution has to start at the very top.

Only by bringing back the bursary scheme for nurses can the government begin to ensure our hospitals are fully-staffed and our patients - both young and old - are safe.