'We try our best as nurses, but it's not enough'

Georgina Day works as an A&E nurse in a London hospital. Every shift, her team of just over 20 starts four nurses short because there are posts it cannot fill.

"It can be worse - if people are sick or agency staff don't turn up. It makes providing good patient care difficult."

She says the demands are huge - her department sees more than 400 patients a day. But the shortages mean patients face delays or have to be given care, such as intravenous antibiotics, in corridors instead of in cubicles.

She says that can make patients angry, recounting the experience of one father shouting at her and saying she didn't care about his sick son.

"I care massively," she says. "When patients are angry it makes me really sad. I want more for them."

Georgina's experience is not unique. A survey by the Royal College of Nursing found six in 10 nurses felt they could not provide the level of care they wanted to.

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Source: BBC News, 2 December 2019