A QUARTER of registered nurses say that their number is so far below what is required that there is now a ‘high risk’ of harm on shift.
In a speech to over 3,000 frontline nursing staff gathered in Liverpool yesterday, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) General Secretary Professor Nicola Ranger called for new and sustained investment.
She told the conference: ‘Widespread vacancies of registered nurses are always unsafe, but the risk is being compounded by the demands of delivering ever more complex care to an ageing, sicker population, with multiple conditions. It is a deadly mix.
‘It is a government’s first priority to keep its citizens safe, but our analysis and the testimony of nursing staff show ministers are too often failing in this most basic task.
‘We need a new approach, away from the flawed “finger in the wind” workforce planning which led us here.
‘It must be centred on new, sustained investment in the nursing workforce to the level that allows our profession to meet all patients’ needs – now and in the future.
‘Anything else lays the ground for another patient safety disaster.
‘But we continue to bear the brunt of funding restrictions and budgets cuts. And that makes a hard job even harder.
‘It means no matter how far we push ourselves beyond our limits, we can’t make up for having too few staff.
‘That can feel like our failure and we carry that pain home with us, long after our shifts have ended.
‘It’s not our failure. It’s nursing set up to fail.
‘There’s a torrent of violence, sexual assaults, discrimination and abuse faced by nursing staff while we provide care.
‘It’s rising. And it has to be stopped. This is about respect, it’s about fairness and it’s about decency.
‘But these problems run deep. What we see is sex, race and class being held against sections of our workforce. It’s not an equal playing field.
‘The truth of the matter is, if we don’t make nursing staff feel welcome here, we shouldn’t be surprised if they decide to leave.
‘We cannot allow that to happen. Because it only risks deepening nursing workforce issues by creating a recruitment and retention crisis of internationally educated staff. Staff who bring knowledge and skills that are so valued.’
