Nursing gap ‘filled by untrained assistants’

NHS hospitals struggling with a shortage of nurses are “plugging the care gap” with healthcare assistants, a report suggests.

The study found the number being hired is rising at four times the rate of nurses, amid a shortage of around 35,000 nurses.

For every nurse taken on between December 2015 and December 2017, four of the cheaper workers were hired.

The study found almost one in three care roles in NHS trusts was now filled by a healthcare assistant.

It follows warnings that the workers are being used as “nurses on the cheap” and left unsupervised. Healthcare assistants are meant to help trained nurses, carrying out basic tasks such as feeding patients, answering call bells and helping them to the lavatory.

But there is increasing concern that they are being used to perform tasks for which they are untrained – such as administration of medicines or being left in charge of multiple patients.

The study, by BPP University School of Nursing, says soaring vacancies of nurses over the period paint an “alarming picture”, with heavy reliance on agency nurses, as well as assistants.

Worst affected areas are the North West and East of England, where nursing vacancies rose by 48 per cent and 46 per cent respectively. Across all English trusts, the nursing and midwifery vacancy rate rose from 28,713 in December 2015 to 34,682 in December 2017 – a rise of 21 per cent.

“To plug that care gap, trusts are increasingly turning to healthcare assistants, whose numbers have grown substantially,” the report said. Joyce Robins, from Patient Concern, called the trend “frightening”, saying: “This is really worrying, there is such a paucity of trained staff and we are seeing far too much reliance on staff who just aren’t trained for the tasks they are doing.”