One in three hospital nurses are too busy to relieve patients’ pain, give them their medication on time or talk to them and their families, research reveals.
Fifty-three percent of nurses fear the quality of care patients receive is suffering because they cannot do everything they need to do during their shift, according to a survey of 30,000 nurses.
And nurses are being left responsible for the care of as many as 25 hospital patients at a time, even though official guidelines say that to ensure patient safety it should not be more than eight.
The findings, compiled by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), paint a picture of nurses so busy in often understaffed wards that many are having to leave some patients’ care needs unattended to.
Staff shortages are so acute that some patients are even being left to die alone, with no nurse present in their final moments, the survey found.
Thirty-six percent of respondents said a lack of time meant they had to leave necessary tasks undone. They included changing the patient’s position often enough for their safety and comfort, helping them with their dental health and completing records of patients’ care.
Such lapses in care matter because they heighten the risk of someone experiencing complications of their condition or suffering harm, the RCN says.
Fifty-three percent of nurses said patient care had been compromised during their last shift. Those most likely to say that were those working in A&E and other urgent and emergency care settings (67%) and prisons (64%). However, far fewer nurses in GP surgeries (31%), hospices (35%) and operating theatres (35%) said the same.
A further 53% said they felt sad or upset that they could not provide the right standard of care. “I feel like I’m spinning plates, except the plates are patients – that to me is the worst feeling. A feeling of no control. Going from crisis to crisis continuously is so incredibly stressful,” one nurse said.
Another said: “I drove home from work sobbing today, knowing that the patients I cared for didn’t get even a fraction of the level of care I would consider acceptable. I would be devastated if my family or friends were in the hospital I work in, as there are just not enough staff to go around.”
Even more respondents – 55% – said there were fewer registered nurses on duty than planned during their last shift. That finding adds to the evidence that the NHS is running so short of nurses that wards are routinely understaffed. The health service in England alone has vacancies for 40,000 nurses, the RCN claims.
Sixty-five percent of nurses said they worked just under an hour’s overtime – often unpaid – while 44% said no action was taken when they raised concerns about poor staffing levels. Nurses voiced anxiety about patient safety and their lack of job satisfaction, and some said they might quit the NHS.
The RCN is urging ministers to legislate to guarantee the minimum number of nurses that need to be on duty in different areas of medical care, depending on the number of patients at the time.
A Department of Health spokesman said it was funding an extra 10,000 training places for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals by 2020 “to ensure the NHS has the staff it needs both now and in the future”.
He added: “We are helping the NHS to make sure it has the right staff, in the right place, at the right time to provide safe care. That’s why there are over 29,600 more professionally qualified clinical staff including over 11,300 more nurses on our wards since May 2010 [in England].”
Hurray for austerity and Brexit. The end of the article talks about how the NHS is due to enact another round of streamlining and cutting beds, partially due to funding issues complicated by Brexit.
Let him land on any Lyran world to taste firsthand the wrath of peace loving people thwarted by the myopic greed of a few miserly old farts- Katrina Steiner
And of course, the very conservative politicians and media figures (particularly in the US) who cheered Brexit will then use this as an argument against universal/public health care.
Assholes. Its like setting someone on fire and then blaming them for getting ash on your carpet.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.
I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
The Romulan Republic wrote: ↑2017-09-30 12:37am
And of course, the very conservative politicians and media figures (particularly in the US) who cheered Brexit will then use this as an argument against universal/public health care.
Assholes. Its like setting someone on fire and then blaming them for getting ash on your carpet.
Meh... The US has similar problems, just manifesting in different ways.
The thing is, the US had inmigrants, such as Fillipino nurses to help prop up numbers for years now. Just like how Britain NHS had Indians, Pakistanis and Eastern Europeans for years, but the changes in the economy, funding and lastly Brexit is aggravating the shortage as supply dry up.
The same is also happening in the US, just slower because her population is younger and is manifesting in closures of rural hospitals.
Let him land on any Lyran world to taste firsthand the wrath of peace loving people thwarted by the myopic greed of a few miserly old farts- Katrina Steiner
Oh, yes, US health care is all kinds of cluster fuck, for reasons that have nothing to do with EVIL PUBLIC HEALTHCARE. I know that. Asshole Right-wing politicians know it too, probably.
Won't stop them lying about it, or using any failure by the NHS to score points.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.
I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
If anyone is interested, its been reported that 10,000 EU citizens have exited the NHS since the Brexit vote. This isn't going to help.
On another note, one can see the awesome staff of the NHS in action in the BBC doco "Hospitals." No doubt BBC might object to copyright, but I found an episode on youtube after the terrorist acts and its amazing watching the multicultural staff work together. Literally there were French speakers helping the French school kids who were injured by translating, head surgeons from different ethnic backgrounds etc working like a well drilled unit. Sort of reminds me of the UFP. And I hear rumours the UK government wants to cut funding.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
As a recent guest of the NHS, this rings depressingly true. It wasn't for lack of trying on the part of the staff, but it was obvious they were short-handed and barely keeping on top of the workload, and morale was suffering for it.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
