Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Recruitment'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 211 results
  1. News Article
    There has been a dramatic fall in morale among midwives across multiple measures within the NHS staff survey. Although general morale deteriorated among most staffing groups in 2021, the results for midwives across numerous key measures have worsened to a far greater degree than average. It comes amid the final Ockenden report into the maternity care scandal at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals Trust, which raised serious concerns about short staffing and people wanting to leave the profession. The survey results, published on 31 March, suggest 52% of midwives are thinking about leaving their organisation, up 16 percentage points on the previous year. In comparison, the number of general nurses thinking of leaving was 33%, up just 5 percentage points. Chris Graham, chief executive of healthcare charity the Picker Institute, which coordinates the staff survey, described the midwifery profession as an “outlier” in the 2021 results, in terms of how their experiences compare to other groups and how their responses have changed over time. “Not only do midwives report worse experiences in many areas, but there is evidence of particularly sharp declines in some key measures,” Mr Graham said. “It appears likely that staffing shortages are a major factor here.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 April 2022
  2. News Article
    The number of GPs in England has fallen every year since the government first pledged to increase the family doctor workforce by 5,000, a minister has admitted. There were 29,364 full-time-equivalent GPs in post in September 2015, when the then health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, first promised to increase the total by 5,000 by 2020. However, by September 2020 the number of family doctors had dropped to 27,939, a fall of 1,425, the health minister Maria Caulfield disclosed in a parliamentary answer. And it has fallen even further since then, to 27,920, she confirmed, citing NHS workforce data. In the 2019 general election campaign, Boris Johnson replaced Hunt’s pledge with a new commitment to increase the number of GPs in England by 6,000 by 2024. However, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, admitted last November that this pledge was unlikely to be met because so many family doctors were retiring early. Organisations representing GPs say their heavy workloads, rising expectations among patients, excess bureaucracy, a lack of other health professionals working alongside them in surgeries, and concern that overwork may lead to them making mistakes are prompting experienced family doctors to quit in order to improve their mental health and work-life balance. The British Medical Association (BMA) said the figures Caulfield cited showed that the lack of doctors in general practice was “going from bad to worse for both GPs and patients”, and it warned that patients were paying the price in the form of long waits for an appointment. “Despite repeated pledges from government to boost the workforce by thousands, it’s going completely the wrong way,” said Dr Kieran Sharrock, the deputy chair of the BMA’s GP committee. “As numbers fall, remaining GPs are forced to stretch themselves even more thinly, and this of course impacts access for patients and the safety of care provided.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 April 2022
  3. News Article
    A shortage of more than 2,000 midwives means women and babies will remain at risk of unsafe care in the NHS despite an inquiry into the biggest maternity scandal in its history, health leaders have warned. A landmark review of Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust, led by the maternity expert Donna Ockenden, will publish its final findings on Wednesday with significant implications for maternity care across the UK. The inquiry, which has examined more than 1,800 cases over two decades, is expected to conclude that hundreds of babies died or were seriously disabled because of mistakes at the NHS trust, and call for changes. But NHS and midwifery officials said they fear a growing shortage of NHS maternity staff means trusts may be unable to meet new standards set out in the report. “I am deeply worried when senior staff are saying they cannot meet the recommendations in the Ockenden review which are vital to ensuring women and babies get the safest possible maternity care,” said Gill Walton, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). The number of midwives has fallen to 26,901, according to NHS England figures published last month, from 27,272 a year ago. The RCM says the fall in numbers adds to an existing shortage of more than 2,000 staff. Experts said the shortage was caused by the NHS struggling to attract new midwives while losing existing staff, who felt overworked and fed up at being spread too thinly across maternity wards. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 March 2022
  4. News Article
    Burnout is not a strong enough term to describe the severe mental distress nurses and other NHS staff are experiencing, says a doctor who has led efforts to improve care for health professionals. Medical director of the NHS Practitioner Health service Dame Clare Gerada told MPs radical action was needed to improve the mental well-being of NHS staff. She said nurses and other healthcare staff should be entitled to one hour of paid reflective time per month to be written into NHS employees’ contracts, alongside mentoring, careers advice and leadership training built in throughout people’s careers. Dr Gerada was among senior clinicians who gave evidence this week to the Health and Social Care Committee, which is looking at issues around recruitment and retention of staff. She told the committee the term ‘burnout’ simply did not cover the level of stress and mental anguish experienced by NHS workers. ‘Burnout is too gentle a term for the mental distress that is going on amongst our workforce,’ she said. High suicide rates among nurses and doctors, high levels of bullying and staff being sacked because they have long-COVID are all signs the health service is failing to look after its employees, she said. ‘The symptoms we have got are the symptoms of an organisation that is unable to care for its workforce in the way that it should be caring,’ she said. Read full story Source: Nursing Standard, 25 March 2022
  5. News Article
    The chief nursing officer for England has spoken about the ongoing shortages of nurses across the country and how the government’s previous pledge for 50,000 more nurses is now “not enough”. At one of her first in-person speeches since the start of the pandemic, Ruth May also revealed that she thought the removal of the student nurse bursary in England was “fundamentally the wrong decision”. Ms May was speaking at an event organised by the League of St Bartholomew’s Nurses in honour of pioneering nurse Pam Hibbs, who died following a Covid-19 infection last year. During her keynote address, Ms May said workforce remained a “big focus” for her team due to the “shortage” of nursing staff nationally. She said work to address the gaps was centred on the three areas of international recruitment, domestic training, and retention. She said numbers of nurses being recruited from overseas annually had risen from around 5,000 to 6,000 before the pandemic, to an expected 20,000 in this financial year. “I’m very, very glad that the NHS has had a diverse workforce from its very inception. We have welcomed colleagues from across all countries of the world, and we will continue to do that,” Ms May said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Nursing Times, 22 March 2022
  6. Content Article
    In this article published by Economics By Design, Colin Lewry and Jacque Mallender argue that, despite recent history, treating healthcare staff as a cost and not an asset needs to be reversed when developing workforce plans and approaches in 2022.
  7. News Article
    The highest ever number of medical students have been told there are no places for them this year, despite the health service’s crippling shortage of medics. The risk that young would-be doctors may not be allocated to start their training at a hospital in the UK has sparked concern among the medical students affected, as well as medical organisations. Pressure is growing for action to close the gap between the number of training places available across the NHS and the number of graduates seeking one, so medical talent is not wasted and hospitals hire as many fresh recruits as they can to help tackle the widespread lack of medics. Doctors are worried that the mismatch between demand for and supply of training places will lead to the NHS missing out on medics it sorely needs and that some of those denied a place will either go to work abroad instead or give up medicine altogether. The most recent official figures showed that the NHS in England is short of almost 8,200 doctors. Dr Dustyn Saint, a GP in Norfolk, tweeted the health secretary, Sajid Javid, about the situation, saying: “Sajid Javid sort this out! You know how much general practice needs these people in a few years, standing by and doing nothing is inexcusable.” Another doctor said: “It’s bonkers that 800 would-be doctors could be denied training places at a time when the NHS in England is short of 8,200 doctors.” The British Medical Association has voiced concern about the large number of unallocated medics. “Now we have a situation where a record number are left with unnecessary uncertainty about where they are headed this August,” said Khadija Meghrawi, the co-chair of its medical students committee. “In a time where student mental health is declining, this additional source of uncertainty and stress is particularly unfair.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 March 2022
  8. News Article
    The NHS is facing a deepening staffing crisis, with the number of unfilled posts across health services in England rising to 110,192, official figures show. The shortages include 39,652 nurses and 8,158 doctors, according to the latest quarterly data for health service vacancies published by NHS Digital. The disclosure prompted warnings that the shortage of frontline personnel would lead to longer delays, hit the campaign to cut the 6.1m treatment backlog and undermine quality of care. Staff groups said they feared that low pay, burnout from heavy workloads and constant pressure during shifts, compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, were leading demoralised workers to quit. “The fact that nursing vacancies remain stubbornly high, at about 40,000 in the NHS in England, is deeply worrying. With every job that remains unfilled, safe patient care becomes even harder to maintain”, said Patricia Marquis, the Royal College of Nursing’s director for England. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “The Conservatives’ scrapping of the nursing bursary and failure to fix staffing shortages has been disastrous for the NHS, and patients are paying the price. NHS staff do heroic work but there simply aren’t enough of them. Yet the government still has no plan to fill these positions, meaning patients will continue to wait unacceptable lengths of time for treatment.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2022
  9. News Article
    The NHS is “flying blind” and “woefully unprepared” to cope with England’s rapidly ageing population, senior doctors have warned as stark new figures reveal the country has only one full-time geriatrician to care for every 8,000 older people. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said the drastic shortage of specially trained physicians to look after the rising number of elderly people and a lack of NHS workforce planning meant England was “sleepwalking into an avoidable crisis of care for older people”. Its analysis of NHS and Office for National Statistics data shows there is just one full-time geriatrician for every 8,031 people over the age of 65 in England. There are also regional disparities, with one geriatrician caring for more than 12,500 over-65s in the east Midlands, while the figure in north-east and central London is one per 3,254. Estimates suggest that by 2040 there could be as many as 17 million over-65s. But the college warns that many doctors will soon be requiring geriatric care themselves as 48% of consultant geriatricians are due to retire within the next decade. The RCP said the health service was short of staff across all specialities and the shortage of geriatricians was one example of why the health service needed more workforce planning. It said there was no publicly available data on the number of staff the NHS needed to train now to meet future demand for care. Dr Jennifer Burns, the president of the British Geriatrics Society, said the crisis would only worsen with the “predictable rise” in the numbers of older people across the country. “It is absolutely vital that these fundamental issues around the recruitment, retention, development and support of the workforce are addressed, and that there is a properly resourced strategy for future needs,” she said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2022
  10. News Article
    The NHS is facing a “time bomb” and will be forced to cancel or delay around 8 million operations each year by 2040, due to a lack of consultant anaesthetists across the services. The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCOA) said the current shortage of at least 1,400 staff across the UK means millions operations will not be able to take place. The college has warned its speciality is facing a “perfect storm” of limited training places, poor retention and an ageing workforce with 39 per cent nearing retirement age. The analysis found as demand for surgeries continue the need for anaesthetists is due to increase by 3.85 per year, meaning the NHS will need around 25,000 doctors in these posts by 2040. Dr Fiona Donald, president of the RCOA said: “The NHS is facing an anaesthetic workforce time bomb. We already have profound workforce shortages that are preventing huge numbers of operations from taking place – and unless urgent action is taken, the problem is going to worsen. “We would welcome government funding for additional anaesthetic training posts. One hundred additional posts per year would start to plug the gap and help get the UK back on a sound footing to be able to address the waiting list backlog. Without this investment, we foresee impacts to patient care and a further impact on the mental health of our current workforce – they need to be able to prioritise their own health and that of their families alongside the focus they already place on the health of patients and the public.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 February 2022
  11. Content Article
    In this explainer from the Nuffield Trust, Billy Palmer and Lucina Rolewicz take stock of what is known and not known about the numbers of staff leaving NHS and social care roles, and the reasons given for moving on.
  12. News Article
    The average number of patients each individual GP is responsible for has increased by 15%, or around 300 people, since 2015, the BMA has said. This is due to the ‘slow but steady haemorrhaging’ of GPs over the last few years, which has led to pressures on services growing ‘even more acute’, it suggested. The Association’s statement comes in response to the latest GP workforce data – published by NHS Digital (10 February) – which showed that 188 FTE GPs left between December 2020 and December 2021. Dr Farah Jameel, chair of the BMA’s GP committee, said the figures are the direct result of an ‘over-stretched’ and ‘under-resourced’ NHS. She said: ‘Family doctors, exhausted and disenchanted, feel as though they have no choice but to leave a profession they love because of chronic pressures now made worse by the pandemic. Workload has dramatically increased, there are fewer staff in practices to meet patient needs.’ Insufficient staffing is particularly concerning as the backlog for care continues to grow, she suggested, with many GPs believing ‘the day job is just no longer safe, sustainable or possible anymore’. The NHS and the Government must work to retain current staff as its ‘immediate priority’ and must urgently refocus on retention strategies as a key enabler for the NHS’ recovery. She said: ‘The Government has repeatedly argued that the number of doctors is growing, but this isn’t the reality for general practice, and it begs the question: how many more have to go before something is finally done about it? Our NHS is the people who work in it, and without them, the entire system and provision of patient care is under threat.’ Read full story Source: Management in Practice, 11 February 2022
  13. Event
    until
    This free virtual conference is hosted by NHS Employers in partnership with The Prince’s Trust and Health Education England. It celebrates the achievements of The Prince’s Trust health and social care programmes, and the opportunities created for the NHS and local communities by recruiting young people into the workforce. It is aimed at staff working at NHS provider organisations with a responsibility for widening participation, equality, diversity and inclusion, recruitment and retention, or any other relevant HR role. Themes Widening participation – reaching young people who may be underrepresented in the workforce. Recruitment – engaging with and preparing young people to enter the workforce. Retention – supporting young people to remain in the workforce. Download the agenda Register to attend
  14. News Article
    There are at least 7,469 research nurses and midwives across the UK and Ireland working within all areas of healthcare, reveals a landmark new census initiated by a group of NIHR 70@70 Senior Nurse & Midwife Research Leaders. The census, incorporating responses from research nurses and midwives across all four UK nations and the Republic of Ireland, reveals nurses and midwives are working at every level in healthcare from Bands 5 – 9 in the UK, and from staff nurse to Directors of Nursing or Midwifery in the Republic of Ireland. This suggests there are opportunities to join the profession at every level, with continued potential for career progression. Clinical research nurses and midwives are a specialist workforce, with knowledge, skills and expertise in both clinical practice and research delivery. The census shows that: 33.7% reported working in joint posts, for example as a clinical research nurse for part of their role as well as a clinical nurse specialist; 72% are working within a single disease/area specialism; 28% reported covering multiple disease areas. NIHR Director of Nursing & Midwifery Professor Ruth Endacott said: “This census reveals the true breadth and depth of our research nursing and midwifery community. We know there are scores of people working incredibly hard day and night helping to bring us new treatments and medicine alongside their healthcare colleagues but we now have a much clearer idea of the size of the workforce. Research nurses and midwives are making a difference to the health of people across the UK and Ireland." Read full story Source: National Institute for Health Research, 9 February 2022
  15. Content Article
    An article* from Ehi Iden, hub topic leader, discussing the Nigerian healthcare workforce crisis.
  16. News Article
    Children with mental health problems are dying because of failings in NHS treatment, coroners across England have said in what psychiatrists and campaigners have called “deeply concerning” findings. In the last five years coroners have issued reports to prevent future deaths in at least 14 cases in which under-18s have died while being treated by children’s and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). The most common issues that arise are delays in treatment and a lack of support in helping patients transition to adult services when they turn 18. Coroners issue reports to prevent future deaths in extreme cases when it is decided that if changes are not made then another person could die. Dr Elaine Lockhart, the chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ faculty of child and adolescent psychiatry, said the findings were “deeply concerning” and every death was a tragedy. She said there were too often lengthy delays and services were under strain as demand rises and the NHS faces workforce shortages. “In child and adolescent mental health services in England, 15% of consultant psychiatrist posts are vacant,” Lockhart said, calling for more support, investment and planning to grow staff levels. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 February 2022
  17. Content Article
    The serious and growing workforce crisis in the NHS and social care is the biggest, most pressing threat to the viability of services for people who need them. COVID-19, Brexit, and points based immigration rules have accelerated issues around recruitment, retention, workload, and wellbeing that were already affecting the workforce even before the pandemic. What we need is a relentless focus on implementing solutions, resourcing them properly, and reporting progress, writes David Oliver in this BMJ article.
  18. News Article
    NHS dentistry is "hanging by a thread" with some patients facing two-year waits for check-ups, the British Dental Association has said. Department of Health data analysed by the BBC shows almost 1,000 dentists working in 2,500 roles across England and Wales left the NHS last year. One woman told how she had been in pain for more than a year while waiting to have root canal surgery. NHS England said patients who most needed care should be prioritised. Pamela Carr, 58, from Carlisle, has been looking for an NHS dentist to fix her root canal since November 2020. "I've become used to the pain," she said. "I can't afford the private care, and I've tried every practice within 30 miles. I phoned NHS England too." "They said there's nothing they can do because there are no NHS dentists. That was the end of the conversation." Clinical Commissioning Group North Cumbria, which covers the area, lost 4% of its dentists in the last year. The worst-affected area was NHS Portsmouth CCG, which lost 26% of its NHS dentists over 12 months. At least 10% of NHS dentists were lost in 28 other English CCGs. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 January 2022
  19. Content Article
    The brief focuses on the nursing workforce at a time when a global pandemic is raging across the world. The year just ended—2021— has seen unprecedented damage inflicted on health systems and on the nursing workforce. The year just begun—2022— marks no change in the continuing relentless pressure of the pandemic on individual nurses, and on the global nursing workforce. This brief was commissioned by the International Centre for Nurse Migration (ICNM). It provides a global snapshot assessment of how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting on the nursing workforce, with a specific focus on how changing patterns of nurse supply and mobility will challenge the sustainability of the global nursing workforce. It also sets out the urgent action agenda and global workforce plan for 2022 and beyond which is required to support nurse workforce sustainability, and therefore improve health system responsiveness and resilience in the face of COVID-19.
  20. News Article
    Thousands of overseas-qualified doctors wanting to work in the UK will be delayed after the General Medical Council cancelled exams due to the surge in Covid cases. The regulator said its decision to pause professional and linguistic assessment board tests, scheduled for January and February, was made “in direct response” to the current omicron wave. Up to 54 doctors would have been needed each per day as examiners, it said, alongside a “large number of role players and staff”. It comes as overseas recruitment is seen by government and national officials as a crucial way to boost NHS staffing, including GPs. Director of registration Una Lane said: “We are deeply disappointed to have to cancel exams at this time, but given the pressures on the NHS and the impact on examiner availability, it was the only viable option.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 6 January 2022
  21. News Article
    A long-term plan to fix the staffing crisis in the NHS is needed to cut record waiting lists for treatment, the government is being warned. Currently, nearly six million people in England are waiting for routine operations and procedures - many of whom are in pain. A report from MPs says the government needs to address staff shortages - or NHS workers will quit. There have been repeated warnings over the length of hospital waiting lists in England. As of September 2021, a record 5.8 million patients were waiting for surgery - such as hip or knee replacements - with 300,000 waiting more than a year compared with just 1,600 before the pandemic. In the autumn Budget, the government announced an extra £5.9bn for the NHS in England to help clear the backlog. This was on top of another funding package in September to create an extra nine million checks, scans and operations. But in its report published today, the Commons health and social care select committee said the health service was hugely understaffed and was facing an "unquantifiable challenge" in tackling the backlog. Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary who now chairs the committee, said the NHS was short of 93,000 workers and there was "no sign of any plan to address this". He described the staffing crisis as "entirely predictable", adding: "The current wave of Omicron is exacerbating the problem, but we already had a serious staffing crisis, with a burnt-out workforce." "Far from tackling the backlog, the NHS will be able to deliver little more than day-to-day firefighting unless the government wakes up to the scale of the staffing crisis facing the NHS." Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 January 2022
  22. News Article
    Is hiring more district nurses the smartest way to tackle the NHS care crisis as overstretched staff claim they are quitting hospitals due to intolerable pressure? District nurses are the unsung backbone of the NHS – going in to people’s homes to perform everything from wound dressings to support at the end of life. Yet what was once a thriving district nurse workforce has, over the past decade, been decimated. An ever-increasing caseload, limited resources and far more complex and challenging health needs have left them burnt out and fed up. As a result, they’re leaving in droves – at a time when we need them more than ever. The number of people dying at home is up by one third since before the pandemic, and those who do make it into hospital for care are discharged faster than ever to free up beds, long before they’ve made a full recovery. Ministers have tabled some ambitious ideas to address the vital need for at-home care, including a wave of new community health hubs, or more video appointments. But none are a quick fix, nor are they proven to solve the problem. Recruiting more district nurses could help alleviate these pressures, say experts, as well as tackling what threatens to be a spiralling crisis in community care. But this might be harder than it sounds. Read full story Source: Mail Online, 13 November 2021
  23. News Article
    Vacancies for nurses and midwives in Scotland have increased by almost 20% in just three months, new figures show. Official figures revealed that at the end of September the whole time equivalent (WTE) of 5,761.2 posts were unfilled across the NHS – a rise of 18.9% from the WTE total of 4,845.4 that was recorded at the end of June. The rise in vacancies comes at the same time as health service staffing reached a record high, with the NHS employing the equivalent of 154,307.8 full-time workers as of September 30 – 5.2% higher than a year ago. However, opposition leaders warned the health service, which is coming under ongoing pressure as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, is facing a “staffing crisis” this winter. Scottish Labour health spokeswoman and deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “Across our NHS services are on the brink of collapse, and things will only get worse as the cold weather bites. “This staffing crisis at the heart of this catastrophe has unfolded entirely on Nicola Sturgeon’s watch and will jeopardise the ability of services to remobilise and cope with demand. “Looking at the state of services in Scotland, we can all only hope we don’t get sick this winter.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 December 2021
  24. Content Article
    Despite recent discussions and campaigns to widen nursing’s appeal to people of diverse gender identities, it continues to be perceived as a largely female profession. In the context of an ageing workforce, and alongside recruitment and retention challenges, efforts should be directed at developing a more inclusive profession rather than focusing on why people other than women do not become nurses. To attract more men, transgender people and those who identify as nonbinary, as well as women, the approach to nursing recruitment needs to change. The profession must develop a more inclusive culture and examine and promote the advantages that gender diversity can bring to nursing. This article from Quinn et al. explores the lack of gender diversity in contemporary nursing, briefly examines the history of gender in nursing, and considers how the profession might evolve into a more gender-diverse and inclusive workforce.
  25. News Article
    Patients are dying in the backs of ambulances or on trolleys in A&E while others languish in beds unable to be discharged due to the collapse in social care. Others waiting in pain are desperate to get a bed for much-needed surgery. While there are many ingredients mixing together to create the current NHS crisis, a widespread shortage of nurses, doctors and other essential staff is one of the major contributory factors. Many in the NHS reacted with disbelief on Tuesday after 280 MPs voted with the government to reject a bid to force through better workforce planning for the NHS. Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt had pulled together a coalition of health organisations and charities who backed his proposal which demanded ministers draw up and publish workforce plans every two years. Mr Hunt’s amendment fell victim to the fear of the cost of actually training enough doctors and nurses to work in the NHS. The Treasury’s dead hand over NHS policy has and continues to be one of the biggest patient safety threats in the UK. As Mr Hunt told MPs, the costs are borne not only from huge bills for locum doctors and nurses who earn incredible pay working alongside exhausted full-time staff, but also in the safety failures caused by staff shortages. Exhausted nurses will make mistakes. One nurse cannot safely look after a ward of 16 elderly patients. A doctor can only see one patient at a time in A&E. Speaking to MPs, Mr Hunt pleaded with the Commons to offer some hope to the NHS workforce. He said NHS staff were “exhausted” but also “daunted” by the challenges they were seeing. He added: “All they ask is one simple request, that they can be confident we are training enough of them for the future.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 November 2021
×
×
  • Create New...