NEWS
Better long-term workforce planning urgently needed, says health leader By Kat Keogh
@katkeogh
GETTY
Greater investment is needed to train the next generation of nurse academics as older faculty members reach retirement, a world-renowned cancer expert has warned. Council of Deans of Health chair Dame Jessica Corner said an ageing academic workforce and moves to increase nurse training numbers meant some universities could struggle to find suitable staff to train future nurses. Places on pre-registration degree programmes in England grew by 9 per cent this year, following a period of cuts.
Health Education England, which is responsible for funding healthcare workers’ training, commissioned 13,276 adult nurse places for the 2014/15 academic year, up from 12,134 in 2013/14. Last week, the body launched a new campaign to tempt former nurses back with the promise of free return-to-practice courses at universities. Yet while numbers of front line nursing posts are increasing, a 2013 RCN survey revealed that half of the 262 nurses who hold professorial posts in the UK are over the age of 51.
Speaking to Nursing Standard ahead of collecting her damehood at Windsor Castle, Dame Jessica said more opportunities were needed for younger nurses to combine clinical work with academic study. ‘I combined becoming a specialist cancer nurse at the Royal Marsden Hospital with pursing my PhD,’ she said. ‘It has been a wonderful career, undertaking research and helping to shape policy to save lives.’ She said better long-term workforce planning was required to ensure nurse training numbers – and faculty staff numbers – remained stable. ‘One period the numbers are increased, and the next year they are cut back. When that happens, universities are forced to reduce their own staff numbers because the funding is also reduced… A number of academic nurses are retiring and we have not invested enough in sustaining the academic community.’
Patient experience
Ebola nurse calls on world to help A nurse who contracted Ebola virus disease while working in Sierra Leone has made a plea for more international support to halt the outbreak. William Pooley (pictured, left) has made a full recovery since being flown back to England for treatment in August. Mr Pooley told the Defeating Ebola summit in London last week of the ‘horror and misery’ of the current outbreak,
which has so far killed 3,338 people. ‘I don’t know what will happen if that is repeated a million times,’ he said. ‘I say that at all costs we cannot let that happen.’ Foreign secretary Philip Hammond (right) told the summit that Mr Pooley has been involved in training health workers being deployed to Sierra Leone, with 160 NHS staff volunteering to help. See letters page 32
Dame Jessica was appointed a dame in the Queen’s birthday honours list in June for services to healthcare research and education. She is currently dean of the faculty of health sciences at the University of Southampton, and as chief clinician for Macmillan Cancer Support, she oversees the charity’s annual cancer patient experience survey. Dame Jessica said the survey, which has been completed by 60,000 patients a year since 2010, has seen a year-on-year improvement in areas such as access to information and how supported patients feel while undergoing treatment. But she said that more had to be done to help people adjust to life after cancer treatment. ‘People need better support and information on how to manage their condition and what to expect in the long run so we can help them get back to the life they led before cancer.’
12 october 8 :: vol 29RCNi.com no 6 :: 2014 STANDARD Downloaded from by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 17, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
Better long-term workforce planning urgently needed, says health leader By Kat Keogh
@katkeogh
GETTY
Greater investment is needed to train the next generation of nurse academics as older faculty members reach retirement, a world-renowned cancer expert has warned. Council of Deans of Health chair Dame Jessica Corner said an ageing academic workforce and moves to increase nurse training numbers meant some universities could struggle to find suitable staff to train future nurses. Places on pre-registration degree programmes in England grew by 9 per cent this year, following a period of cuts.
Health Education England, which is responsible for funding healthcare workers’ training, commissioned 13,276 adult nurse places for the 2014/15 academic year, up from 12,134 in 2013/14. Last week, the body launched a new campaign to tempt former nurses back with the promise of free return-to-practice courses at universities. Yet while numbers of front line nursing posts are increasing, a 2013 RCN survey revealed that half of the 262 nurses who hold professorial posts in the UK are over the age of 51.
Speaking to Nursing Standard ahead of collecting her damehood at Windsor Castle, Dame Jessica said more opportunities were needed for younger nurses to combine clinical work with academic study. ‘I combined becoming a specialist cancer nurse at the Royal Marsden Hospital with pursing my PhD,’ she said. ‘It has been a wonderful career, undertaking research and helping to shape policy to save lives.’ She said better long-term workforce planning was required to ensure nurse training numbers – and faculty staff numbers – remained stable. ‘One period the numbers are increased, and the next year they are cut back. When that happens, universities are forced to reduce their own staff numbers because the funding is also reduced… A number of academic nurses are retiring and we have not invested enough in sustaining the academic community.’
Patient experience
Ebola nurse calls on world to help A nurse who contracted Ebola virus disease while working in Sierra Leone has made a plea for more international support to halt the outbreak. William Pooley (pictured, left) has made a full recovery since being flown back to England for treatment in August. Mr Pooley told the Defeating Ebola summit in London last week of the ‘horror and misery’ of the current outbreak,
which has so far killed 3,338 people. ‘I don’t know what will happen if that is repeated a million times,’ he said. ‘I say that at all costs we cannot let that happen.’ Foreign secretary Philip Hammond (right) told the summit that Mr Pooley has been involved in training health workers being deployed to Sierra Leone, with 160 NHS staff volunteering to help. See letters page 32
Dame Jessica was appointed a dame in the Queen’s birthday honours list in June for services to healthcare research and education. She is currently dean of the faculty of health sciences at the University of Southampton, and as chief clinician for Macmillan Cancer Support, she oversees the charity’s annual cancer patient experience survey. Dame Jessica said the survey, which has been completed by 60,000 patients a year since 2010, has seen a year-on-year improvement in areas such as access to information and how supported patients feel while undergoing treatment. But she said that more had to be done to help people adjust to life after cancer treatment. ‘People need better support and information on how to manage their condition and what to expect in the long run so we can help them get back to the life they led before cancer.’
12 october 8 :: vol 29RCNi.com no 6 :: 2014 STANDARD Downloaded from by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 17, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
