Letter slams NHS over PRI staffing
Issues long-standing say ‘Senior Staff Nurses’
NHS Tayside bosses have come under fire over claims they tried to cover up the true scale of staff shortages at Perth Royal Infirmary.
In a letter to the Perthshire Advertiser, a group calling itself “Senior Staff Nurses” set out their side of the story after it emerged that wards were being merged and operations cancelled because there is not enough staff in post.
While this paper has not been able to verify the origin of the letter, the group has alleged that the issues being made public now have been around for some time.
The letter claims: that there is a daily shortage of experienced registered nurses, junior nurses feel unsupported, specialist staff based in other units - including midwives, theatre and outpatients - have been called in to support acutely ill medical patients, and there is a “huge reliance” on temporary nursing staff.
And in a message to senior NHS Tayside bosses, they said: “Come and work with us for a few hours and then tell us that NHS Tayside is providing a ‘safe level of care for patients.’ Put on a uniform and try to explain to angry relatives why their mother is unwashed, their father has not had a position change for eleven hours or their son has had to wait for pain relief.
“The stark reality is that care is inadequate, unsafe and at times dangerous to the point that is only a matter of time that a patient is fatally harmed,” the letter warns.
The Royal College of Nursing’s senior officer, Bob McGlashan, said: “Staffing is a big issue. There is a shortage of nursing staff across Scotland and the reality in many areas, including at Perth Royal Infirmary, is that nurses want to do their very best for their patients, but rising demands on our health and care services and a shortage of nursing staff mean that the hospital and the staff who work there are under pressure like never before.
“Change is needed and there have been some significant adjustments to the bed numbers in wards 3 and 6 at PRI to try and
Staff based at PRI have spoken out alleviate staffing and patient safety concerns.”
The PA attempted to contact healthcare professionals’ union, Unison, but did not get a response from officials over the situation at PRI.
But senior management staff hit back at the claims, saying doctors and nurses provide excellent care on a daily basis.
NHS Tayside provided the PA with responses from nursing and doctor representatives.
Nurse director Gillian Costello said: “First and foremost I would like to reassure people in Perth and Kinross that the nursing staff in Perth Royal Infirmary deliver the highest quality and standards of care to all their patients.
“We, of course, take any concern raised by staff very seriously and as soon as we had sight of the correspondence, myself and senior nursing and medical colleagues, as well as senior managers and the employee director, met with senior charge nurses at PRI on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 22. The staff feel very upset that this letter calls into question their professionalism in their ability to provide fundamental nursing care.
“The senior charge nurses are the members of the team who are at the point of patient care every day and they would simply never compromise patient safety on their wards. This is the message that they want their patients and the public to hear and it is also echoed by the doctors who are caring for patients in PRI wards.”
Staff at PRI were given the chance to air problems at the meeting. Ms Costello added that staff from across PRI’s wards meet four times a day to resolve pressing issues when they arise.
And clinical lead for medicine at Perth Royal Infirmary, Dr John Harper, said: “As a frontline clinician I spend my working life on wards 3 and 6 at PRI directly delivering care and, therefore, I feel I am well placed to share the reality of the day-to-day workings of the hospital. Firstly, I would like to absolutely reassure our patients that we are providing safe, highquality care here at PRI.
“It would be fair to say that these are challenging times for everyone working in hospitals in terms of the demands on our services and the increasingly complex patients that we care for, not just in PRI or in Tayside hospitals, but across the country. However, the claims in the letter relating to patient safety simply do not reflect the high standards of care which the ward teams, both doctors and nurses, deliver every day here at PRI.”