Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Staff support'.


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
    • 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 852 results
  1. News Article
    About half of all hospital doctors and nurses have had accidents or experienced near misses while driving home after a night shift. The risks they pose to themselves and other road users have been calculated as the same as those posed by drivers who are over the legal alcohol limit, delegates at a European medical conference were told last week. As a result, health experts have called for doctors and nurses to be allowed to take 20-minute power naps during night shifts. This would make their journeys home safer and would also help to protect patients from mistakes they might make through tiredness when administering drugs or other treatments. “When fatigue sets in, we in the medical and nursing team are less empathetic with patients and colleagues, vigilance becomes more variable, and logical reasoning is affected, making it hard for us to calculate, for example, the correct dose of drugs a patient might need,” consultant anaesthetist Nancy Redfern of Newcastle hospital said last week. “We find it hard to think flexibly, or to retain new information, which makes it difficult to manage quickly changing emergency situations. Our mood gets worse, so our teamwork suffers. Hence, everything that makes us and our patients safe is affected.” Research found that workers who drive home after a 12-hour shift are twice as likely to have a crash as those working eight-hour shifts. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 June 2022
  2. News Article
    Emergency doctors in Scotland are “dreading” the Queen’s Jubilee weekend as fears grow that the public holiday will add to long patient queues. One accident and emergency consultant has pleaded with patients to be considerate to NHS staff as they deal with long backlogs at a time when other workers will be on holiday. Calvin Lightbody, at Hairmyres Hospital in Lanarkshire, said that the GP out-of-hours service in his region had been so short-staffed they had to send patients to A&E instead of treating the people themselves, adding to the delays in hospitals. He said a four-day bank holiday weekend, when doctors’ surgeries will be shut, threatened to add to the pressure on “creaking” services. “If you go to A&E you are going to have a very long wait to be seen, several hours probably,” he said. “Please be kind. Our staff are working extremely hard, they are flat out, they are exhausted, they are doing their best.” He appealed to patients not to delay seeking medical attention if they were seriously unwell including those suffering chest pain, heavy bleeding and stroke symptoms even though services were “overwhelmed”. Read full story Source: The Times, 1 June 2022
  3. News Article
    The health safety watchdog has said that doctors, ambulance dispatchers and other NHS staff in England have faced "significant distress" and harm over the past year as a result of long delays in urgent and emergency care. The Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB), which monitors safety in the health service in England, said many staff it interviewed for a national investigation "cried or displayed other extreme emotions" when asked about their working environment. "The bad sides [of my job] give me nightmares, flashbacks and fear, but they can also make me hyperactive, sleepless and sometimes not care about the danger I put myself in," one paramedic told the BBC. Sarah, not her real name, has worked in the ambulance service for more than a decade, but describes the last 12 months as the most difficult she can remember. "Over the winter I have witnessed and helped with cardiac arrests in the corridors of hospitals and in the back of ambulances," she said. "I spent four hours with an end-of-life patient. There was no hospice or district nurse available, so I had to make the choice to give them meds for a peaceful, expected death and prepare the family. "I felt ashamed that I could not stay till the end, but I had to move on to the next job as I had done all I could." The HSIB found NHS staff were reporting increased levels of stress, worry and exhaustion because they were not always able to help the sickest patients. HSIB has now urged trusts to do more to protect workers’ mental health, saying there is an “intrinsic link” between patient safety and staff wellbeing. Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 February 2023
  4. News Article
    Record levels of NHS staff are seeking mental health help as clinicians warn the “crisis” facing workers is “worse than the pandemic”. Hundreds of staff are being referred to the specialist mental health service, NHS Practitioner Health, with 842 workers referred in October 2022 – up from 534 in the same month the year before and 371 in 2020. Around 40% of the staff seeking the service are GPs and 50% are hospital doctors. The news comes as The Independent reported that the NHS and government are set to axe funding for 40 mental health hubs set up for health and social care workers following the pandemic. Amandip Sidhu, of Doctors in Distress, which offers workers mental health support, said: “Health workers believe that the crisis they are currently dealing with is worse than during the pandemic and exacerbated by the fact there is no end in sight, with little evidence that decision-makers are taking steps to improve the situation. “The fact that the public, their patients, lack sympathy or understanding is making many medics feel isolated and completely unappreciated.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 February 2023
  5. News Article
    Suicidal NHS staff will be left in “dangerous” situations without support when national funding for mental health hubs ends next month, health leaders have warned. The hubs, set up with £15 million of government funding for NHS workers following Covid, are being forced to close or reduce services as neither the Department for Health and Social Care nor the NHS has confirmed ongoing funding for 2023-24. This will leave thousands of NHS staff, some of whom are described as “suicidal” in “complete limbo”, The Independent has been told. The British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Association of Clinical Psychologists (ACP) said the failure to continue the funding was an “irresponsible” way to treat vulnerable health and care workers. Professor Mike Wang, chair of ACP, said: “There is a clinical responsibility, not to remove a service from individuals who are vulnerable, and in difficulty … the problem with that is that the funding ceases at the end of March and that’s absolutely no time at all to make any [future] provision. So, it’s clinically irresponsible to simply halt a service. Some of these individuals are, you know, carrying suicide risk.” He said it was “dangerous” and “astonishing” that funding for the hubs was ending “given the present circumstances of continuing effects of the pandemic, clear evidence of underfunding of health care in this country”. Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 February 2023
  6. News Article
    Healthcare workers are “absolutely shattered” and unless something is done to address the crisis in morale, staffing and training then “they won’t be there when you need them”, one of the world’s leading scientists has warned. Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Jeremy Farrar, the director of Wellcome and soon to be chief scientist of the World Health Organization, warned that healthcare workers would not be ready should another crisis hit. “This is a global issue, which I think is hugely concerning. It’s certainly true in this country,” he said. “The resilience of healthcare workers, broadly defined from ambulance drivers to nurses to doctors, to care workers in social care, etc. They’re shattered. They are absolutely shattered." Farrar said: “I think we have to address the morale, staffing, the training, everything from public health physicians to care workers, to doctors and nurses and physios and everybody in between because there’s very little spare capacity in any system globally. It’s particularly true in the UK. As you can see from the strikes, morale and resilience is very thin.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 February 2023
  7. News Article
    The British Medical Association has accused the government of "reckless" behaviour ahead of the results of a strike ballot by junior doctors. The BMA's Professor Philip Banfield said the prime minister and health secretary were refusing to enter meaningful negotiations with unions. The Department of Health and Social Care said it had met with the BMA and other unions to discuss pay. Professor Banfield, the BMA's chair of council, said that Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Steve Barclay were "standing on the precipice of an historic mistake". He accused the government of "guaranteeing escalation", adding that officials were "reckless" for thinking they could stay silent and wait it out. Professor Banfield also accused the government of "letting patients down", adding: "All NHS staff are standing up for our patients in a system that seems to have forgotten that valuing staff and their well-being is directly linked to patient safety and better outcomes of care." Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 February 2023
  8. News Article
    “Frustration with the system was why I went off in the end,” said Conor Calby, 26, a paramedic and Unison rep in southwest England, who was recently off work for a month with burnout. “I felt like I couldn’t do my job and was letting patients down. After a difficult few years it was challenging.” While he usually manages to keep a distinct divide between work and home life, burnout eroded that line. He also lost his sleep pattern and appetite. The final straw came when what should have been a 15-minute call resulted in three hours on the phone trying to persuade the services that were supposed to help a suicidal patient to come out. “I was on a knife edge. That was due to the system being broken. That’s the trigger.” Doctors and nurses are struggling under the strain too. After her third time with burnout - the last resulting in her taking six months off work – Amy Attwater, an A&E doctor, considered leaving the profession altogether. Attwater, 36, said in the Covid crisis, during which a colleague killed himself, she started having suicidal thoughts and doubting her own abilities. She twice reported that she was being bullied but said no action was taken. “The only thing I was left with was to take time off work. I ended up having therapy, seeing a psychiatrist and being on two antidepressants,” said Attwater, the Midlands-based committee member for Doctors’ Association UK. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 February 2023
  9. News Article
    A health minister has called for more staff to take part in an inquiry into deaths at a mental health trust. An independent review into 1,500 deaths at the Essex Partnership University Trust (EPUT) over a 21-year period was launched in 2020. It emerged earlier this month that 11 out of 14,000 staff members had come forward to give evidence to an independent inquiry. The trust said it was encouraging staff to take part in the inquiry. During a parliamentary debate, Health Minister Neil O'Brien said the trust was being given a "last chance" before the government intervened and instigated a statutory inquiry. A statutory inquiry would allow staff to be compelled to give evidence. In December, a further 500 deaths were made known to the review chair, Dr Geraldine Strathdee. She said the inquiry could not continue without full legal powers. Chelmsford MP Vicky Ford said she had been told by the chief executive of EPUT that staff were "very scared" to give evidence. Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 January 2023
  10. News Article
    Thousands of NHS staff across the UK are facing pay cuts because of a change in Covid sickness policy. Analysis by BBC Panorama suggests that between 5,000 and 10,000 NHS workers could be off sick with Long Covid. Unions are accusing the government of failing to support health staff who worked during the coronavirus pandemic. The government says the Covid-19 public inquiry will examine these issues when it begins taking evidence in May. Changes to special sick pay rules introduced during the pandemic mean that some NHS staff unable to work due to Long Covid may soon no longer receive full pay. Enhanced provision ended last year. Many had a six-month transition, so expect their wages to go down soon. Some face losing their jobs. Professor David Strain is the chair of the Board of Science at the British Medical Association (BMA) and says this makes him "genuinely angry". He explains: "We've got a group of people that have put themselves forward to look after the population, they've been left with an illness and they're not being supported. "They're just in a no man's land." He believes that health workers with long Covid should be allowed to focus on their recovery without money worries. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 January 2023
  11. News Article
    Patients and staff are in danger as regulators are accused of poor handling of sexual assault allegations made against doctors and nurses, The Independent has been told. Campaigners and frontline staff who spoke to The Independent warned that professional regulators are not dealing adequately with allegations of sexual assault, harassment and domestic violence. A study of rulings by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has also revealed that male nurses account for 80% of striking-off orders relating to sexual assault allegations, despite only making up 11% of the register. The warning comes after horrific details of rape and abuse by police officer David Carrick were uncovered this week. Dr Rebecca Cox, who helped sparked a major #MeToo movement in medicine and is co-founder of the Surviving in Scrubs campaign group, told The Independent: “There are great similarities, in the recent cases of prolific sexual harassment and assault, between the Met Police and the NHS. “As an organisation, we have had multiple healthcare professionals contacting us desperate to seek support after facing repeated barriers when trying to report harassment and assault to their employing NHS organisation and regulators such as the GMC. “Victims find their cases ignored or dropped without good reason, and perpetrators being able to continue working without repercussions. We need a public inquiry into sexism, sexual harassment and sexual assault in healthcare.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 January 2023 You may also be interested in: Calling out the sexist and misogynist culture within healthcare: a blog by Dr Chelcie Jewitt, co-founder of the Surviving in Scrubs campaign
  12. News Article
    Two in five GPs are facing verbal abuse every single day, a new poll suggests. Some 74% of family doctors have claimed they or their staff have experienced verbal abuse on a weekly basis, including almost 40% who say it occurs daily, according to the survey conducted by GP publication Pulse. And 45% said practice staff experience physical abuse every year, according to the poll of 1000 GPs. As well as facing abuse in GP surgeries, a third reported practice staff have faced abuse on social media on a weekly basis. The Royal College of GPs described the survey findings as deeply disturbing. One GP told the journal: "Last week a patient, without any mitigating circumstances, was desperately abusive to one of my receptionists bemoaning the fact it wasn’t the US where she could buy a gun and 'sort us all out'. "Primary care seems to be bearing the brunt and blamed by all and sundry for the current issues and the public are picking up on this." Read full story Source: Medscape, 19 January 2023
  13. News Article
    Patients will suffer if ministers bow to nurses’ demands for pay rises, the health secretary has warned as tens of thousands of NHS staff walk out on today. Steve Barclay told the Independent said any boost to wages would “take billions of pounds away from where we need it most”. He wrote: “Unaffordable pay hikes will mean cutting patient care and stoking the inflation that would make us all poorer.” Today tens of thousands of nurses will strike across 55 trusts. NHS data shows 4,567 operations and 25,009 outpatient appointments were cancelled during the nurse’s strikes on 15 and 20 December. The NHS also faces further ambulance strikes next Monday, which sources indicate will go ahead, and new strikes are to be announced for February by union GMB. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) criticised Mr Barclay for “pitting nurses against patients”, branding the comments “a new low for the health secretary”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 18 January 2023
  14. News Article
    John Watkinson was one of the country's top ear, nose and throat surgeons. But Mr Watkinson's life and career were turned upside down when he was accused of shortening the lives of three patients, suspended and investigated. General Medical Council investigators would eventually close his case, taking no further action, and Mr Watkinson would receive an apology for what he had experienced from his employer University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) NHS Trust. But that was six years after he was first suspended - six years that would see him pushed to the brink. "As doctors, we're trained in communication skills, we have appraisals, mandatory training," he says. "But the one thing we're not trained to cope with is when somebody declares war on you." The hospital trust stands by its decision to suspend Mr Watkinson and says its referral to the General Medical Council was "appropriately made following a clinical colleague raising significant concerns" about patient care. UHB has been in the spotlight in recent weeks, with reviews launched into its culture, leadership, and allegations of poor patient care aired in a Newsnight investigation late last year. It says a review into patient care is now well under way. Mr Watkinson says he was at the sharp end of this culture when he was suspended and suddenly went "from hero to zero". He accepts mistakes were made, but not just by him and not ones that would have affected the patients' outcomes. Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 January 2023
  15. News Article
    An inspection of a hospital has found all wards were understaffed, while ‘tearful [and] exhausted’ clinicians raised patient safety concerns to the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The CQC’s visit to Colchester hospital, run by East Suffolk and North East Essex Foundation Trust, also found patients going unfed because of low staffing ratios and patient confidentiality concerns. The concerns were raised in a letter sent by the CQC to the trust, which also runs Ipswich hospital, ahead of publication of an inspection report for older people’s medical services, which is due later this month. The CQC’s letter, published in board papers for a meeting on Thursday, said: “All wards’ actual staffing levels and skill mix meant staff were often overstretched. All staff we spoke with expressed concern about the impact on patient care and personal wellbeing. Some staff we spoke with were tearful, reported feeling exhausted and concerned that they were unable to care for patients well enough to keep them safe.” The letter also said significant positives were found. Inspectors “found staff to be welcoming, hardworking and supportive of each other… We found staff at all levels working together with the aim of putting the patients first and providing a safe and effective service”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 January 2023
  16. News Article
    NHS England has shelved priorities on Long Covid and diversity and inclusion – as well as a wide range of other areas – in its latest slimmed down operational planning guidance, HSJ analysis shows. NHSE published its planning guidance for 2023-24, which sets the national “must do” asks of trust and integrated care systems, shortly before Christmas. HSJ has analysed objectives, targets and asks from the 2022-23 planning guidance which do not appear in the 2023-24 document. The measures on which trusts and systems will no longer be held accountable for include improving the service’s black, Asian and minority ethnic disparity ratio by “delivering the six high-impact actions to overhaul recruitment and promotion practices”. Another omission from the 2023-24 guidance compared to 2022-23 is a target to increase the number of patients referred to post-Covid services, who are then seen within six weeks of their referral. Several requirements on staff have been removed, including to ”continue to support the health and wellbeing of our staff, including through effective health and wellbeing conversations” and ”continued funding of mental health hubs to enable staff access to enhanced occupational health and wellbeing and psychological support”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 January 2022
  17. News Article
    Mental health and wellbeing hubs for NHS and social care staff could be axed within months, as national funding for them is likely to be cut, HSJ has learned. NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care are understood to be close to ending ring-fenced national funding for the 41 hubs, which were set up in February 2021, at the peak of acute covid pressures and concern about the impact on staff. Sources told HSJ discussions were ongoing, but that it is likely integrated care systems would need to find funding themselves if they are to continue. Amid tight local finances, it is expected many will be wound down or closed. This is despite problems with low staff morale, high absence rates and with large numbers of experienced staff thought to be leaving the service. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 January 2022
  18. News Article
    The mother of a sick girl has confronted the health secretary during a hospital visit in London, telling him that NHS staff are “worked to the bone” and the government is doing “terrible damage” to families on waiting lists. Sarah Pinnington-Auld, whose three-year-old daughter, Lucy, has cystic fibrosis, rebuked Steve Barclay over NHS staff working conditions and long waits for treatment as he visited King’s College hospital. She told the Conservative cabinet minister how her daughter was pushed off an “absolutely horrific” waiting list because of “the obscene number of people who came through and the lack of resources”. “The damage that you’re doing to families like myself is terrible, because it was agony for us as a family waiting for that call,” she said. “Preparing our children, for their sister and her hospital visit, for then it to be cancelled. And I know you look and we’re all numbers, but actually they’re people waiting for care.” “The doctors, the nurses, everyone on the ward is just brilliant, considering what they’re under, considering the shortage of staff, considering the lack of resources,” she said. “That’s what’s really upsetting, actually, because we have a daughter with a life-limiting, life-shortening condition and we have some brilliant experts and they’re being worked to the bone, and actually the level of care they provide is amazing, but they are not being able to provide it in the way they want to provide it because the resourcing is not there.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 19 December 2022
  19. News Article
    Hospital staff in Nottingham have said they are keen to build on the success of its menopause support scheme. Nottingham University Hospitals Trust (NUH) said 24% of its staff were aged 45-55, the most common age for the condition. Staff can ask for lighter uniforms, shift changes, more time to complete tasks or access to fans in offices. Advice, awareness training and access to specialist staff are also part of the scheme. The staff wellbeing team at NUH said they were "inundated" with messages from colleagues who were struggling. Jenny Good, NUH Staff Wellbeing Lead, said: "We strongly believe that menopause is an issue for everybody. Everyone knows somebody who will go through it. "We wanted to equip everyone who works at NUH with an awareness of what menopause is. "We're really proud that we're the first NHS trust to get the accreditation. "The conversation has opened up." Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 December 2022
  20. News Article
    Four out of five Britons are worried about the NHS’s ability to provide safe care for patients during strikes by nurses and ambulance workers, a new poll has found. While around half of those surveyed said they support the planned industrial action, the majority expressed concern about the impact on patient safety. The Ipsos poll of 1,100 adults found that 80% were very or fairly concerned about the ability of the NHS to provide safe care for people during the nurses’ strike, which began on Thursday. Meanwhile, 82% of those questioned in the survey said they are very or fairly concerned about patient safety during the ambulance workers’ industrial action, with the first strike planned for 21 December. The new poll comes as the NHS continues to face high demand and widespread staffing gaps, with health leaders fearing this winter will be the most difficult in the health service’s history. Ambulances have been struggling to meet response times targets, while new data published on Thursday shows handover delays at hospitals in England have hit a new high. But the Ipsos survey suggests that, nevertheless, more people are supportive of the industrial action than are opposed to it. Some 50% of those questioned said they either strongly support or tend to support the industrial action by nurses, while 47% are supportive of the ambulance worker strikes. Read full story Source: The National, 15 December 2022
  21. News Article
    The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has not met thresholds required to strike in its vote, it announced today, but physiotherapy staff are set to strike at more than 100 trusts in their first ever action ballot over pay. The trade union announced this afternoon that its ballot had not reached the turnout required to take strike action. 88& of those who voted said they supported strike action, but only about 47% of eligible members voted. Law requires a turnout of at least 50%, the RCM said. It comes as nurses prepare to take industrial action on 15 and 20 December, over pay and safety concerns, with ambulance staff across the GMB Union, Unison and Unite set to walk out on 21 December (and GMB also on 28 December). Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 December 2022
  22. News Article
    One in 10 health workers in England had suicidal thoughts during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to research that highlights the scale of its mental impact. The risk of infection or death, moral distress, staff shortages, burnout and the emotional toll of battling the biggest public health crisis in a century significantly affected the mental wellbeing of health workers worldwide. A study involving almost 20,000 responses to two surveys reveals the full extent of the mental health impact on workers at the height of the pandemic. Research led by the University of Bristol analysed results from two surveys undertaken at 18 NHS trusts across England. The first was carried out between April 2020 and January 2021 and completed by 12,514 workers. The second – covering October 2020 to August 2021 – was completed by 7,160. The first survey found that 10.8% of workers reported having suicidal thoughts in the preceding two months, while 2.1% attempted to take their own life in the same period. Some 11.3% of workers who did not report suicidal thoughts in the first survey reported them six months later, with 3.9% – about one in 25 – saying they had attempted to take their own life for the first time. Responses showed that a lack of confidence in raising safety concerns, feeling unsupported by managers, and having to provide a lower standard of care were among the factors contributing to staff distress. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 June 2023
  23. News Article
    The number of NHS staff who feel able to raise concerns about clinical safety has fallen for the second year in a row, an analysis of NHS staff survey data has shown. A report by the NHS’s National Guardian’s Office, which represents local “freedom to speak up guardians” who help NHS workers to raise concerns, said that staff were increasingly disillusioned and that they believed that speaking up was “futile,” which had “worrying implications for patient safety.” Dr Jayne Chidgey-Clark, National Guardian for the NHS said: “It is not acceptable that two in five workers responding to the NHS staff survey do not feel able to speak up about anything which gets in the way of them doing their job. “These survey responses show us that there is a growing feeling that speaking up in the NHS is futile – that nothing changes as a result. When workers speak up about concerns, including the impact of under staffing and a crumbling infrastructure, their leaders themselves may struggle to be heard when trying to address these concerns. “I would add my voice to that of others that this urgently needs to be addressed". Read full story Source: BMJ. 9 June 2023
  24. News Article
    Patients may be found guilty of discrimination if they refuse the care of a transgender medic, according to new NHS guidance. Health bosses have been warned that patients have no right to be told a healthcare worker’s assigned sex at birth. However, transgender health workers can choose not to treat patients if they feel uncomfortable doing so, the report by NHS Confederation says. The report, published earlier this month in partnership with the LGBT Foundation, says patients can only request care from a same-sex staff member in limited circumstances, such as if they are having an intimate examination. It states that when a patient requests an employee administering care to be a woman or a man, “the comfort of the staff member should be prioritised”. Read full story Source: Telegraph, 9 June 2023
  25. News Article
    There has long been an acknowledgment by ministers and NHS leaders that violence against staff by patients was an issue that needed addressing, with a strategy to tackle it announced nearly five years ago. The health service’s 2019 long-term plan included a pilot for the use of body-worn cameras by paramedics in a bid to “de-escalate” situations. The following year the Crown Prosecution Service announced an agreement with the police and NHS England to “secure swift prosecutions” of those who assault staff, and the maximum penalty for assaulting emergency workers, including doctors and nurses, was also doubled to two years. Despite these measures, there have been internal disagreements within NHS England about the best approach to the problem, which affected almost 15% of staff last year, according to the latest national survey of the health service workforce. The Guardian understands that senior managers in NHS England told staff in its violence prevention and reduction (VPR) team last April that prosecutions of those who assaulted healthcare workers and dismissals of abusive staff should be a last resort. Instead, the focus should be on improving the culture of the NHS and staff wellbeing. It is also understood that managers cautioned against using the term “zero tolerance” because they said it did not take into account that some people who abuse NHS staff might lack capacity, an apparent reference to mentally ill patients. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 May 2023
×
×
  • Create New...