NEWS: FRANCIS REACTION
Hunt promises 3,700 more nurses, but numbers continue to decline By Kat Keogh and Sally Gillen Nurse numbers in England have fallen by almost 2,500 since the start of the year, despite a government pledge to hire thousands more staff. New figures from the Health & Social Care Information Centre reveal that 306,025 nurses, midwives and health visitors were working in England in August this year – down from 308,483 in January. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced last week that hospitals will recruit 3,700 nurses in England by the end of March as part of the government’s response to the Francis report into failings at Mid Staffs. The RCN claims staffing problems run deeper than official figures suggest and warns of a ‘hidden crisis’, with nearly 20,000 nursing posts currently unfilled in England.
Recruitment drive
RCN head of policy Howard Catton said he welcomed the recruitment drive, but fears that the proposed number is not enough. He added: ‘I suspect that a number of these 3,700 posts are not actually “additional” nurses, but posts kept vacant or frozen deliberately that are now being recruited for in the glare of the Francis report.’ Hospital trusts that have recruited nursing staff this year include Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which invested £3 million in more than 100 nurses and healthcare assistants. United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust hired 165 staff nurses between April and August. But despite the recruitment drives undertaken by foundation trusts, their own watchdog, Monitor, forecasts thousands of job losses in the next two years. Monitor predicts that England’s foundation trusts
will shed up to 4,000 full-time equivalent posts by 2016. Queen Margaret University Edinburgh workforce expert James Buchan said: ‘The claimed short-term gain of 3,700 by next March would redress the recent decline, but it is the long-term sustainability of the workforce that we need to focus on,
I SUSPECT SOME OF THESE NEW POSTS HAD BEEN FROZEN – Howard Catton
given continued increases in patient acuity, patient numbers and high bed occupancy.’ Government-commissioned healthcare reports by Robert Francis, Don Berwick and Sir Bruce Keogh all concluded that unsafe staffing levels contributed to poor care at Mid Staffs and at least 14 other hospitals. But ministers failed to introduce mandatory staffing levels in its response to the reports, arguing that each type of ward has different requirements.
Hospitals will instead publish staff numbers for every ward and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is developing staffing tools, which will be available to inpatient wards by July 2014. Last week, England’s chief nurse Jane Cummings published a ‘how to’ staffing guide. It includes advice on publishing daily reviews of the actual staff available on every shift compared with the planned numbers. The Safe Staffing Alliance, a group of leading nurses brought together by Nursing Standard, says patient care is at risk when there are more than eight patients to one nurse. Safe Staffing Alliance member and National Nursing Research Unit deputy director Jane Ball said that publishing nursing numbers would be meaningful only if they were accompanied by patient numbers. ‘It is wonderful that safe staffing has been such a key part of the response – the alliance has been instrumental in that,’ she said. ‘However, safe staffing is about the number of nurses on duty relative to the number of patients and their needs.’
Nurse posts by Health Education England area East Midlands East of England Yorks and Humber Wessex Thames Valley North west London South London North, central and east London Kent, Surrey and Sussex North East North West West Midlands South West
Aug 10 Aug 11 23,521 23,337 28,154 28,049 32,991 32,550 14,154 13,737 10,653 10,667 13,549 13,389 17,872 18,008 20,174 20,444
Aug 12 23,424 27,561 31,850 13,614 10,783 13,960 17,816 20,068
Aug 13 23,561 27,525 31,623 13,960 10,508 14,315 17,778 19,956
Change ▲ 40 ▼ 629 ▼ 1,368 ▼ 194 ▼ 145 ▲ 766 ▼ 94 ▼ 218
20,369 19,555 48,866 33,196 24,002
20,787 19,619 47,155 33,153 23,357
21,012 19,827 47,862 33,152 23,501
▲ 643 ▲ 272 ▼ 1,004 ▼ 44 ▼ 501
20,717 19,306 47,528 33,126 23,592
Figures include midwives, school nurses and health visitors – full-time equivalents Source: Health & Social Care Information Centre
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