Search the hub
Showing results for tags 'Working hours'.
Found 71 results
-
Community Post
GP experiences of rejected referrals and access to secondary care
Patient-Safety-Learning posted a topic in GP and primary care
- (and 6 more)
Are you a GP or other healthcare professional working in primary care? Have you noticed an increase in rejected referrals to outpatient services/for scans and other investigations? How have changes to the referral system affected you? What communication relating to referrals have you received recently from the NHS? What has the impact been on your own workload and wellbeing, and the safety of patients? Please share your experiences with us so we can continue to highlight this important issue. -
Content ArticleShift work can introduce additional health, safety and wellbeing challenges. This article explore some of these challenges, including the increased risk of injury or illness, sleep and fatigue problems, psychological health, and suggest ways you can ensure safe and healthy shift work.
-
Content ArticleStatistics and key facts about the impact of hydration, nutrition, sleep, and regular breaks on workforce wellbeing.
-
Content ArticleThis resource from the Royal College of Nursing encourages health and social care managers to ensure that nursing staff are taking their at-work breaks, are well hydrated and have access to nutritional food. It outlines the case for making improvements and the legal responsibilities of employing organisations, and provides tips and case studies to support the implementation of improvements. The document is supported by a short guide for nursing staff and posters to encourage nursing staff to self-care and take steps to rest, rehydrate and refuel.
-
Content ArticleHealth and care workers in all parts of Europe are experiencing overwork, with high levels of burnout. This opinion piece in the BMJ looks at the issue of healthcare professionals leaving European health systems to take early retirement or work in other countries where pay and conditions are better. It highlights the causes of this exodus, including increasing patient complexity, salary erosion and work-life balance. It argues that policies should prioritise retaining existing staff, as increased training numbers offer only a partial, long term answer.to the crisis, highlighting potential approaches governments can take to retain highly qualified healthcare staff.
-
Content ArticleOn paper, a GP’s working schedule can look quite inviting: consulting for three and a half hours in the morning, with a coffee break in the middle, then a gap for lunch and home visits before a similar length afternoon surgery. However, this is rarely the reality for NHS GPs. In this BMJ opinion piece, GP Helen Salisbury talks about what working life is really like for GPs and highlights the mismatch between their scheduled hours and tasks and the reality, which often involves them doing much more. She highlights how the unrealistic demands GPs face have been exacerbated by a movement of work from secondary to primary care, and argues that this is contributing to the workforce crisis that general practice faces.
-
News Article"I still have nightmares most nights about being completely out of my depth." Gemma, a ward nurse in Northern Ireland, was redeployed to a critical care unit at the end of March when the first wave of coronavirus struck. "I had never looked after a critically ill intensive care patient in my life," she says. "I just thought, I'm coming in here and I'm going to die. I'm going to catch Covid and I'm going to be one of those patients in the beds." As the second wave of the pandemic takes deep root across parts of the UK, thousands of NHS workers are struggling to recover from what they have already been through. "We were all in PPE all the time," recalls Nathan, a senior intensive care nurse at a hospital in the Midlands. "All you can see is people's eyes, you can't see anything else." He describes trying to help junior members of staff survive long and difficult days. "And I'd see these eyes as big as saucers saying help me, do something. Make this right. Fix this." "The pressure was insane, and the anxiety just got me," he says. "I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't eat, I was sick before work, I was shaking before I got into my car in the morning." Nathan ended up having time off with severe anxiety, but he is now back at the hospital, waiting for the beds to fill up again. The BBC has spoken to a number of nurses and doctors across the UK who are deeply apprehensive about what lies ahead this winter. Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 October 2020
-
News Article
COVID-19: Doctors feel under pressure to work extra shifts unpaid, survey shows
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Thousands of doctors feel under pressure from their employers to work extra shifts, often unpaid, to help tackle the backlog of care caused by the covid pandemic, the BMA has warned. The warning came after results from the BMA’s latest tracker survey showed that more than half its respondents (58%, 2834 of 4876) had worked extra hours in the previous month as part of the response to the pandemic. Almost a third (29%, 1387) said they were not paid for the additional time they worked. More than two fifths (44%) of respondents (2086 of 4719) said they felt under pressure from their employer to do extra hours in the last month. And more than a third (36%, 1759) had either skipped taking full breaks altogether or taken them on rare occasions in the past fortnight. Nearly six in 10 doctors who responded (57%, 2889 of 5059) reported a higher than normal level of fatigue or exhaustion because of working or studying during the pandemic. Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA’s chair of council, said, “To learn that an already depleted and now exhausted workforce feels forced into doing more and more hours, with many reporting higher levels of fatigue than ever, is extremely worrying. It is putting them and their patients at risk. Working ‘flat out’ without a change to rest and recuperate is simply unsustainable and unsafe." Read full story Source: BMJ, 10 May 2021 -
News ArticleLondon’s largest acute trust has been accused of ‘emotional blackmail’ by suggesting junior doctors could do voluntary shifts in its ‘really short staffed’ critical care unit. In an email cascaded to all junior doctors at Whipps Cross Hospital, run by Barts Health Trust, hospital medical director Heather Noble said day and night shifts at another trust site, the Royal London Hospital, “really need cover”. She said doctors could work overtime through a “voluntary or paid shift”, and that if they made contact, should “state whether or not they want to be paid”. Doctors working at the trust who received the email, who wished to remain anonymous, described the email as “tone deaf” and “not the right way to incentivise anyone to do what they want”. One medic said: “There has been a lot of anger generated by this correspondence amongst junior doctors. People already working antisocial and demanding rotas are very unhappy about being asked to work more hours for free.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 26 January 2021
-
News Article
New flexible working rights for NHS staff first day in post
Patient-Safety-Learning posted a news article in News
NHS staff will now be able to request flexible working arrangements from the first day in post. Previously, staff had to be in service for at least 6 months before they could put in a request. It has been found a lack of work-life balance was a significant cause of why staff left the healthcare service. The new rule will come into effect on 13 September 2021 and staff will be allowed to make an unlimited number of flexible working applications and submit them without justification or provide specific reasons. Read full story. Source: Royal College of Nursing, 29 June 2021 -
EventThis Hospital at Night Summit focuses on out of hours care in hospitals delivering high quality safe care at night. Through national updates, networking opportunities and case studies this conference provides a practical guide to delivering a high quality hospital at night, and moving forward during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The conference will also focus on improving staff well-being at night and reducing fatigue. For more information visit: https://www.healthcareconferencesuk.co.uk/virtual-online-courses/hospital-at-night-summit or email nicki@hc-uk.org.uk hub members receive a 20% discount. Please email info@pslhub.org for discount code Follow on Twitter @HCUK_Clare #hospitalatnight
-
Content ArticleThis report outlines the results of a survey of 10,000 nursing staff in the UK carried out by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). The survey highlighted stark differences in career progression and treatment in the workplace between White nurses and those from a mixed ethnic background, and Black and Asian nurses. In the 35-44 age group, 66% of White and 64% of respondents from mixed ethnic backgrounds said they’d been promoted. This dropped to just 38% of Asian and 35% of Black respondents. Black respondents working in both hospital (39%) and community (32%) settings are more likely to report having experienced physical abuse than respondents of other ethnic backgrounds. In response to these findings, the RCN is calling on the UK Government to reform human rights law to help tackle workplace racism, including introducing a legal requirement to eliminate disparities in recruitment, retention and career progression. They also want employers to have greater responsibility to protect minority ethnic groups from racism in all its forms.
-
Content Article17 September 2020 marks the second annual World Patient Safety Day. The theme this year is 'Health Worker Safety: A Priority for Patient Safety'. In the run up to this special event, Patient Safety Learning are publishing a series of interviews with staff from across the health and care system to highlight key issues in staff safety and gain a clearer idea of the kind of change that needs to take place to keep staff, and ultimately patients, safe. In this video, Neal Jones, Director of Patient Safety at Liverpool University Hospitals, discusses the challenges staff are currently facing and the support that they need. A transcript of the video is also included below.
-
Content ArticleThe BMA sent out its first survey at the beginning of April. The most recent survey closed on 13 August and nearly 4,000 doctors took part. The 13 August 2020 results found: 60% of doctors said they were not very, or not at all, confident in their local health economy managing demand as normal NHS services resume. Half of doctors said they were not very, or not at all, confident in being able to manage a second wave of COVID-19. 26% of doctors said that in the last two weeks non-Covid demand had increased to pre-pandemic levels, with 17% saying that demand is now even higher than it was before.
-
Content ArticleThis interview is part of the hub's 'Frontline insights during the pandemic' series where Martin Hogan interviews healthcare professionals from various specialties to capture their experience and insights during the coronavirus pandemic. Here Martin interviews an advanced specialist paramedic working in central London with four years' experience of working on the frontline.
-
Content Article
COVID-19: a guide to the big issues for nurses
Claire Cox posted an article in Good practice and useful resources
Published in Nursing Standard, these frequently asked questions are for nurses on coronavirus-related issues, including self-isolation, sick pay, redeployment and staff well-being. -
Content ArticleIn this letter, published by the International Society for Quality Health Care, Dr Francesco Venneri shares his experience of the response to COVID-19 in Italy from the perspective of his involvement as both a clinical risk manager and as an emergency front line worker.
-
Content Article
Coronavirus: Is this the time to change staff working patterns?
Phil Gurnett posted an article in Blogs
In this thought-provoking blog, Phil discusses the implications of retired staff rejoining their registers and returning to frontline care, and how short shifts may benefit us all. -
Content ArticleLondon clinicians have shared their top 10 tips to help prepare NHS staff in other parts of the country facing the COVID-19 crisis. UCLPartners asked clinicians working in a range of specialties across its region, the first in the UK to deal with a major escalation in COVID-19, to share their practical advice to support NHS staff elsewhere in the country preparing for a large number of COVID-19 cases.
-
Content ArticlePartners across the NHS and social care are mobilising at scale in response to the developing COVID-19 pandemic. The AHSN Network's role, along with England’s 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), is to support them by helping them take full advantage of the most relevant innovations and technologies that can improve care for patients and support our services in this challenging context. Nationally, the AHSN Network is part of a coordinated NHS response to identify and enable the implementation of technologies that respond to areas of highest priority action, in particular solutions for remote consultation and patient monitoring, diagnostics and point-of-care testing.
-
Content ArticleBlog published in the Guardian from an NHS respiratory consultant.
