[guide.chat] five thousand nurses axed
- From: vanessa <qwerty1234567a@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "GUIDE CHAT" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:55:43 -0000
Patients are at risk as hospitals axe 5,000 nurses, warns union
Royal College of Nursing claims switch to healthcare assistants is putting
lives in danger
A busy NHS hospital ward. Photograph: Alamy
The head of the Royal College of Nursing has warned of a major health risk to
patients as it emerged that 5,000 nurses have left the NHS since the coalition
government came to power, while nearly 6,000 lower-paid and less well-qualified
healthcare assistants have been taken on since 2010. The figures fuelled fears
that cheap labour is being sought to plug holes in services.
Earlier this month the Care Quality Commission announced that one in ten
hospital services it had inspected were failing to meet the standard on
adequate staffing levels. Figures published this week by the NHS Information
Centre show that in December 2012 there were 4,887 fewer nurses working in the
NHS than in May 2010.
New figures gleaned from freedom of information requests show that the number
of "healthcare assistants" has risen by 5,926 in the same period. Peter Carter,
chief executive of the RCN, which has 395,000 members, including both nurses
and healthcare assistants, said the figures illustrated a growing problem with
the NHS.
Carter said healthcare assistants, who often receive their training on the job
and have a standard day rate of £9.68 an hour, were invaluable but that all too
often they received no training and were being inappropriately used as
replacement nurses. A survey last year found that healthcare assistants were
taking on work, including looking after intensive care patients, for which they
were not always properly trained.
Carter said: "We are concerned that there is a dilution, to the detriment of
patient care, of the ratio of qualified nurses to health care assistants. That
has been compounded by so many employers not giving their health care
assistants any training.
"So you have the double whammy of not having enough registered nurses and
replacing them with people who do not have rudimentary training."
The Department of Health said the number of full-time equivalent positions lost
since 2010 was 2,811, although the total headcount was down by 4,887. It added
that the number of clinical staff had risen by 1.3%, or 6,969 since May 2010.
However Carter accused the government of arguing over "semantics", and added
that as demand for care increased due to longer life expectancy, "hospitals
were working at 100% capacity". He added trusts slashing staff numbers,
including nurses, whose wages range between around £21,000 and £67,000 a year.
"We are seeing more and more reports of ambulances stacking up in car parks,
more and more patients on trolleys in corridors," he said. "All the royal
colleges say the wards need to operate at 85% capacity to cope with surges and
that isn't happening. It will undoubtedly impact on standards of care. You
cannot cut nurses and expect places to carry on as normal."
The shadow health minister, Jamie Reed, said: "These new figures will
undoubtedly raise fears that qualified nurses are being replaced with
healthcare assistants in yet another attempt to cut costs. David Cameron cannot
allow the NHS to haemorrhage experienced nurses to pay for his failed economic
policies."
Health minister Dr Dan Poulter said: "These figures are exaggerated. There are
now more clinical staff in the NHS than in 2010, including around 5,500 more
doctors, 1,300 more midwives and more than 900 more health visitors. In
contrast, the number of admin staff has fallen by over 18,000, and the money
saved put back into frontline patient care.
"The NHS is changing and so will the shape of the NHS workforce change in order
to meet the demands of delivering high quality patient care.
"The government does not make decisions on staffing numbers - hospitals decide
how many nurses are needed to care for patients. Nursing leaders have been
clear that hospitals should publish staffing details and the evidence to show
that nursing numbers are right in order to deliver high quality patient care."
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