NHSE director ‘concerned by 20% nursing gap’ amid push to tackle poor culture

NHS England’s national mental health director admitted she was ‘concerned’ that 20% of mental health nurse roles were unfilled and about the impact this could have on a nationwide push to improve safety and tackle closed cultures.

Claire Murdoch was speaking to HSJ a year on from a series of high-profile documentaries exposing abuse and poor care at mental health trusts. In their wake, Ms Murdoch urged providers to urgently review safeguarding, while a separate three-year quality programme was also launched to look at closed cultures and improve safety.

Now in the middle of that programme, Ms Murdoch stressed that stability in staffing is “vital” to developing safe and therapeutic care, but that many services across the country are struggling with significant nursing vacancies. 

She said: “The bit that absolutely we need to acknowledge [around changing cultures] is there are some significant workforce and staffing challenges, which I’m concerned about, with a 20%t vacancy of qualified registered mental health nurses nationally.

“There are new support roles, psychology assistant roles, physician associates – there are all sorts coming into being in inpatient care, but a lot of services are still struggling with staffing".

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Source: HSJ, 21 September 2023