Nursing union chief hits out at lack of protection equipment
THE safety of nurses and their ability to care for people during the virus outbreak is being “fundamentally compromised” because of a persistent lack of adequate personal protective equipment, the Royal College of Nursing has said.
The nursing union claimed in a submission to the Commons Health Committee examining the handling of the pandemic that the lack of PPE was contributing to fear and anxiety among nurses and, along with the lack of testing, was adding to staffing pressures.
But the UK Government insisted it was “working round the clock” to get equipment to frontline staff and had over the last few weeks delivered more than 600 million items of PPE.
The RCN, which is the largest trade union in the world, representing 450,000 members across the UK, argued there had been an “alarming” focus on ensuring supplies just for NHS hospitals while nurses working in other care settings such as General Practice and care homes had “either no or poor access to PPE and no hand sanitiser”.
Dame Donna Kinnair, the college’s chief executive, in a letter to Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the committee, said despite recent Government announcements PPE against Covid-19 was still not reaching the nursing frontlines.
In the letter, she said nursing staff’s safety and ability to care for patients was being “fundamentally compromised by the lack of adequate and correct supplies of vital PPE and the slow and small-scale introduction of Covid-19 testing”.
Staff were having to share equipment, buy their own or reuse single-issue PPE.
“Our members are facing impossible decisions between their own or their family’s health and their sense of duty,” she said.
Dame Donna pointed out while there were Government announcements about millions of PPE pieces being distributed, they were not reaching parts of the frontline.
On testing, she said: “Covid-19 testing for all health and care staff symptomatic with possible
Covid-19 can no longer be delayed and must be rolled out at pace and scale to ensure everyone with a role to play in keeping our health and care services going, can be tested.
“This will provide reassurance to staff that their safety is paramount and will also enable them to be deployed safely and effectively preventing unnecessary self-isolation and worry.”.
Downing Street said the latest GB daily number for tests was 14,006, including 9,069 at the 13 drive-through stations.
A spokesman said: “Compared to where we were a week ago, we have been making good progress. Importantly, we have tested over 20,000 NHS staff and their family members. There is more to do.
“The fact we have 13 drive-through sites on stream shows we are moving in the right direction.”
Last week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock set a Government target of 100,000 daily tests by the end of April.
There are 500,000 frontline staff in the NHS.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are working around the clock to give the NHS and the wider social care sector the equipment and support they need to tackle this outbreak.
“Every single hospital, community pharmacy and ambulance trust has now had a PPE delivery.
“The full weight of the Government is behind this effort and we continue to work closely with industry, social care providers, the NHS, NHS supply chain and the Army, so all our
NHS and care staff have the protection they deserve.”