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Event
Nursing Live
Patient Safety Learning posted an event in Community Calendar
untilThe only nursing event of its kind in the UK, Nursing Live brings thousands of nurses together to enjoy two days of high-quality professional development, peer-to-peer collaboration, well-being activities and more. As well as bringing senior nursing leaders together to debate key issues and policy, Nursing Live featured some of the sector’s most respected frontline practitioners, such as Nicola Bailey OBE (RCN Nurse of the Year 2021), and Ana Waddington (RCN Nurse of the Year 2020). With dedicated workshops offering guidance on personal mental and physical health, the well-being of nurses was a core theme running throughout Nursing Live. This was complemented by an extensive range of accredited CPD masterclasses covering topics as diverse as equality and inclusion, safeguarding, leadership, medicine management, and innovation. Recruitment opportunities, and exploring different nursing career pathways, were also highlighted, with many exhibitors using Nursing Live to meet prospective employees, and promote live vacancies. Further information -
Event
RCM conference 2024
Patient Safety Learning posted an event in Community Calendar
untilEnergising excellence. Bringing research, education, practice and leadership to life The RCM conference is back for 2024. Professional and educational standards of proficiencies have made clear the importance of midwives working across the professional pillars of the profession: research, education, clinical practice and leadership. Safe and effective care needs an evidence base from research, which is then disseminated and supported through education and strategically implemented into clinical practice and sustained through effective leadership. Furthermore, understanding midwifery professional pillars is relevant for promoting career pathways and ensuring professional recognition alongside our multi-disciplinary colleagues. Register -
News ArticleA senior mental health nurse suffered “degrading and humiliating” treatment while she languished for 10 days on an unsuitable NHS ward during a mental health crisis, The Independent has been told. Rachel Luby, 36, was admitted to Basildon Hospital A&E in Essex on 5 January this year after attempting to take an overdose of over-the-counter medicine following a traumatic assault. This, she claimed, was the start of weeks of horrific care she endured while waiting for a mental health bed. It culminated in her being restrained and forced into a caged van “like an animal”. She revealed her story after The Independent reported on a warning from top emergency doctors that self-harming and suicidal patients who go to A&E are not being treated with compassion because staff are overwhelmed. Ms Luby, an award-winning nurse, said she waited more than a week and a half in a general hospital before she was moved to a bed on a mental health ward. Ms Luby was able to leave the ward and find medication to overdose again, despite staff allegedly assessing her as a risk. In a second incident, she went to the bathroom and attempted to take her own life. She told The Independent: “I feel that this is something I will not recover from. I will not ever reach out for help in the future. “If this is the treatment that I’m getting as a nurse, then what the heck is happening to those that don’t have the voice or education that I have? It horrifies me to think what is happening to people that are far more vulnerable than me.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 27 March 2024
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News Article
Thousands of foreign nurses a year leave UK to work abroad
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Almost 9,000 foreign nurses a year are leaving the UK to work abroad, amid a sudden surge in nurses quitting the already understaffed NHS for better-paid jobs elsewhere. The rise in nurses originally from outside the EU moving to take up new posts abroad has prompted concerns that Britain is increasingly becoming “a staging post” in their careers. The number of UK-registered nurses moving to other countries doubled in just one year between 2021-22 and 2022-23 to a record 12,400 and has soared fourfold since before the coronavirus pandemic. Seven out of 10 of those leaving last year – 8,680 – qualified as a nurse somewhere other than the UK or EU, often in India or the Philippines. Many had worked in Britain for up to three years, according to research from the Health Foundation. The vast majority of those quitting are heading to the US, New Zealand or Australia, where nurses are paid much more than in the UK – sometimes up to almost double. Experts have voiced their alarm about the findings and said the NHS across the UK, already struggling with about 40,000 vacancies for nurses and hugely reliant on those coming from abroad, is increasingly losing out in the global recruitment race. “It feels like the NHS is falling down the league table as a destination of choice for overseas nurses,” said Dame Anne Marie Rafferty, a professor of nursing studies at King’s College London. “Worryingly, it feels as if the UK is perceived not as a high- but middle-income country in pay terms and as a staging post where nurses from overseas can acclimatise to western-type health systems in the search for better pay and conditions.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 25 March 2024 -
News Article
Six in 10 nurses in England turning to credit or savings as costs rise
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Six out of 10 NHS nurses have had to use credit or their savings over the last year to help them cope with the soaring cost of living, according to new research. Acute financial pressures are forcing some nurses to limit their energy use while others are going without food. Many are doing extra shifts to help make ends meet. The findings have added to fears that money worries and inadequate pay will prompt even more nurses to quit the NHS, which is already short of almost 35,000 nurses. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which undertook the survey of almost 11,000 nurses in England, claimed that too many in the profession had been left without enough money to cover their basic needs as they paid the price for “the government’s sustained attack on nursing”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 March 2024 -
News Article
Letby inquiry: NHS staff want their voices heard
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A group representing hundreds of clinicians has applied to contribute to the Lucy Letby inquiry, to challenge NHS culture around whistleblowing. Their experiences of raising concerns should inform the inquiry, they say. Letby murdered seven babies and attempted to murder another six while working at the Countess of Chester NHS trust between June 2015 and June 2016. The public inquiry is examining how the nurse was able to murder and how the hospital handled concerns about her. "The evidence of this group relating to how whistleblowers are treated, not just at one trust but across the UK, is of huge significance," Rachel di Clemente, of Hudgell Solicitors, acting for the clinicians, said. The group, NHS Whistleblowers, comprising healthcare professionals across the UK, including current and former doctors, midwives and nurses, has written to Lady Justice Thirlwall's inquiry, asking for them to be formally included as core participants. The inquiry has stated it will consider NHS culture. And the group says "a culture detrimental to patient safety" is evident across the health service. "NHS staff who have bravely spoken up about patient-safety concerns or unethical practices deserve to have their voices heard," Dr Matt Kneale, who co-chairs Doctors' Association UK, which is part of the group, said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 March 2024 -
Content ArticleThe stressful nature of the medical profession is a known trigger for aggression or abuse among healthcare staff. Interprofessional incivility, defined as low-intensity negative interactions with ambiguous or unclear intent to harm, has recently become an occupational concern in healthcare. While incivility in nursing has been widely investigated, its prevalence among physicians and its impact on patient care are poorly understood. This review summarises current understanding of the effects of interprofessional incivility on medical performance, service and patient care.
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News Article
Nurse reveals sexual harassment and whistleblowing ‘nightmare’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A nurse has warned that she has been “crushed and silenced” over a battle with the NHS and the nursing regulator to investigate claims that she was sexually harassed by a colleague at work. Michelle Russell told Nursing Times of the “eight-year nightmare” she has endured since coming forward about her experiences and that she said had recently led her nursing career to come to an end. “Knowing what’s happened to me is not going to make it easier for anybody else to speak out" She has argued that “speaking up is not encouraged” in the NHS and that her case would discourage other nurses from coming forward about sexual harassment. Ms Russell said: “Anybody who has been around me would be able to see the emotional impact of all of this on me. “I’ve lost my job for highlighting a public safety concern.” The national guardian for the NHS told Nursing Times sexual harassment was a “patient safety issue” and warned that staff continued to face difficulties when speaking out. It comes as the latest NHS Staff Survey this month revealed that almost 4% of nurses and midwives had been the target of unwanted sexual behaviour in the workplace by another member of staff in the last 12 months. Read full story Source: Nursing Times, 15 March 2024 -
Content ArticleNurses play a significant role during transitions of care, such as discharge from inpatient care to the home. Findings from this systematic review of 15 studies confirm the role of nurses in ensuring high-quality care and patient safety in pediatric inpatient care. The review identified five essential elements that could be used in a checklist to ensure safe discharge to home – emergency management, physiological needs, medical device and medications management, and short-term and long-term management.
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Content Article
Antibiotic underdosing is a widespread issue in the healthcare system. The use of modern infusion pumps to deliver intravenous (IV) medications has resulted in the practice of flushing IV lines being lost in some specialties. Failure to give full doses of IV antibiotics poses significant risks to individual patients as well as adding to the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). In this interview, Ruth Dando, Head of Nursing, Theatres, Critical Care and Anaesthetics at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust (BHRUHT) explains why antibiotic underdosing is a risk to patient safety and describes how she has implemented a change in practice to tackle the issue across BHRUHT. A transcript is available below the video. -
News Article
Scandal of rogue nurses free to work on NHS hospital wards
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Scores of potentially dangerous nurses and midwives could be working in the NHS and putting patients at risk as their cases sit in a growing backlog of misconduct, Hundreds of accusations against staff are being progressed without a full investigation, a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) whistleblower has alleged, risking false sanctions or rogue nurses being wrongly cleared if the cases collapse. Overall there are more than 1,000 outstanding cases against healthcare staff for a hearing, including 451 that have not even been allocated a lawyer to vet. In 83 of the more serious allegations, the accused staff have been put under restrictions but could still be working with patients. The NMC whistleblower has claimed the figures expose a hidden backlog of “under-investigated” allegations, with 451 cases against nurses and midwives still needing to be reviewed by lawyers. These could include nurses who are innocent but are awaiting a hearing, with one “stuck in the void” for eight years, the source added. The whistleblower whose allegations prompted The Independent’s investigations has raised repeated concerns to the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), which regulates the NMC, over the hidden backlog, which was only uncovered through a freedom of information request. However the PSA has not used its powers to trigger a review. The whistleblower warned the public is being left at risk of harm, while nurses and midwives could face miscarriages of justice. “The NMC’s desperation to hide these figures has caused it to make dangerous decisions including creating a surge team of colleagues from across the organisation to review these cases with only minimal training,” the whistleblower said.“It is proposing to mass outsource these reviews to a firm of lawyers who have never undertaken this kind of work before.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 3 March 2024 -
Content ArticleThis descriptive and cross-sectional study in the Journal of Patient Safety aimed to examine the impact of nurses’ fear of Covid-19 on their nursing care behaviour during the pandemic. 450 nurses providing one-on-one care to Covid-19 patients between January and March 2021 took part in the study. The results showed that nurses providing care to patients during the pandemic feared Covid-19, that their care behaviours were generally at a good level, and that the care behaviours of nurses with a high degree of fear were negatively and significantly impacted.
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Content Article
A silent safety scandal: A nurse’s first-hand account of a corridor nursing shift
Anonymous posted an article in Florence in the Machine
Corridor nursing is increasingly being used in the NHS as demand for emergency care grows and A&E departments struggle with patient numbers. In this anonymous account, a nurse shares their experience of corridor nursing, highlighting that corridor settings lack essential infrastructure and pose many safety risks for patients. They also outline the practical difficulties providing corridor care causes for staff, as well as the potential for moral injury. Using the System Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) framework, they describe the work system, the processes and how that influences the outcomes.- Posted
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Content Article
This is part of our series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people working for patient safety about their role and what motivates them. Kevin talks to us about the role research plays in improving staff and patient safety. He explains how his own research has uncovered the extent of violence experienced by student nurses and the underreporting of sharps injuries among healthcare students. He also highlights how research can help universities improve awareness of issues facing students across all healthcare courses and provide more effective support. -
Content ArticleStudies have reported evidence on sharps injuries among nursing, medical and dental students but little is known about the amount, type and causes of sharps injuries affecting other healthcare students. This narrative review aimed to identify the extent, type and causes of sharps injuries sustained by healthcare students, especially those not in nursing, medicine or dentistry. The review highlights that some groups of healthcare students, including those studying pharmacy, physiotherapy and radiography, sustain sharps injuries from similar devices as reported in research on such injuries in nursing, medical and nursing students. Sharps injuries happen in a range of healthcare environments, and many were not reported by students. The main cause of a sharps injury identified was a lack of knowledge.
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News Article
NHS nurses being investigated for ‘industrial-scale’ qualifications fraud
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Hundreds of frontline NHS staff are treating patients despite being under investigation for their part in an alleged “industrial-scale” qualifications fraud. More than 700 nurses are caught up in a potential scandal, which a former head of the Royal College of Nursing said could put NHS patients at risk. The scam allegedly involves proxies impersonating nurses and taking a key test in Nigeria, which must be passed for them to become registered and allowed to work in the UK. “It’s very, very worrying if … there’s an organisation that’s involving themselves in fraudulent activity, enabling nurses to bypass these tests, or if they are using surrogates to do exams for them because the implication is that we end up in the UK with nurses who aren’t competent,” said Peter Carter, the ex-chief executive of the RCN and ex-chair of three NHS trusts. He praised the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for taking action against those involved “to protect the quality of care and patient safety and the reputation of nurses”. Nurses coming to work in the UK must be properly qualified, given nurses’ role in administering drugs and intravenous infusions and responding to emergencies such as a cardiac arrest, Carter added. Forty-eight of the nurses are already working as nurses in the NHS because the NMC is unable to rescind their admission to its register, which anyone wanting to work as a nurse or midwife in Britain has to be on. It has told them to retake the test to prove their skills are good enough to meet NHS standards but cannot suspend them. The 48 are due to face individual hearings, starting in March, at which they will be asked to explain how they apparently took and passed the computer-based test (CBT) of numeracy and clinical knowledge taken at the Yunnik test centre in the city of Ibadan. The times recorded raised suspicions because they were among the fastest the nursing regulator had ever seen. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 February 2024 -
Content ArticleThere are many unheard and under-acknowledged voices and perspectives in the health and social care workforce, and they usually belong to those in the most junior, poorest-paid and precarious roles. All these voices deserve more attention than they get, but those of newly qualified and registered nurses and midwives are especially important given the current retention crisis in both professions. Since spring 2023, the King's Fund have been working with 22 newly qualified - newly registered if they trained internationally – nurses and midwives on a project called Follow Your Compassion. A documentary record of the everyday working lives of these nurses and midwives across a variety of settings across the UK health and care system, the project is a companion piece to The Courage of Compassion (2020), a report by The King’s Fund and RCN Foundation which described the core workplace needs of nurses and midwives, and what must be done to meet them.
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News ArticleA nurse whistleblower has described her eight years of hell as she fights the NHS over its failure to properly investigate claims she was sexually harassed by a colleague. Michelle Russell, who has 30 years of experience, first raised allegations of sexual harassment by a male nurse to managers at the mental health unit where she worked in London in 2015. Years of battling her case saw the trust’s initial investigation condemned as “catastrophically flawed” while the nursing watchdog, the Nursing Midwifery Council, has apologised for taking so long to review her complaint and has referred itself to its own regulator over the matter. With the case still unresolved, Ms Russell will see her career in the NHS end this week after she was not offered any further contract work. Speaking to The Independent she said: “If I’m going to lose my job, I want other nurses to know that this is what happens when you raise a concern. I want the public to know this is what happens to us in the NHS when we are trying to protect the public. “I have an unblemished career. They’re crying out for nurses. I’ve dedicated my life to the NHS. I haven’t done anything wrong.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 6 February 2024
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Content ArticleThis article in the Nursing Times explores reflective practice in community nursing, focusing on a stressful incident in which a patient who had not been contactable during a home visit was later found to have died. The article emphasises the necessity of structured reflection, utilising Rolfe’s reflective model, to explore nurses’ feelings. It delves into the model’s stages, its impact on critical thinking and guiding reflection through questions, and highlights the importance of reflective practice, emphasising its role in learning, professional development and improving patient outcomes. The article concludes by showcasing the successful implementation of a new model and its positive impact on patient safety in home visits, providing a structured approach for nurses and health professionals.
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Content ArticleIn this animation, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) look at speaking up and what this means for you as a registered professional.
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Content Article
Top picks: Nurses championing patient safety
Patient_Safety_Learning posted an article in Nurses
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Nurses are at the forefront of health and social care delivery. Often they are also leading, championing and driving change for patient safety. In this edition of our ‘Top picks’ series we celebrate some of the amazing work nurses are doing to prevent avoidable harm and improve patient and staff experience. The examples below include blogs, interviews and practical improvement projects. They have been shared with us by members of the hub, a global community of people passionate about patient safety. You can sign up to the hub here, it’s free and easy to do. -
News Article
Letby inquiry: Former nurse director among ‘core participants’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The former nursing director at the hospital where Lucy Letby murdered seven babies will be among the 'core participants' of the Thirlwall Inquiry. The inquiry, chaired by Lady Justice Thirlwall, will investigate how Letby was able to commit the murders and attempt six others while she worked as a neonatal nurse at Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in 2015 and 2016. This week, Alison Kelly, who was director of nursing and quality at the trust during the time of Letby's crimes, was announced as 1 of 10 core participants in the inquiry. Also named were former Countess of Chester chief executive Tony Chambers, former medical director Ian Harvey and former human resources director Sue Hodkinson. Ms Kelly and Mr Harvey were among the senior staff at the trust who were accused of failing to act when clinicians first raised concerns about Letby. How managers responded to such concerns is one of the areas due to be investigated by the Thirlwall Inquiry. A number of organisations are also on the list as core participants, including the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), NHS England, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Department of Health and Social Care and Countess of Chester itself. Read full story Source: Nursing Times, 3 January 2024 -
Content ArticleChildhood immunisation is a critically important public health initiative. However, since most vaccines are administered by injection, it is associated with considerable pain and distress. Despite evidence demonstrating the efficacy of various pain management strategies, the frequency with which these are used during routine infant vaccinations in UK practice is unknown. This study aimed to explore primary care practice nurses’ use of evidence-based pain management strategies during infant immunisation, as well as barriers to evidence-based practice.
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Content ArticleThe Royal College of Nursing (RCN) held its first ever safe staffing summit, bringing together global nursing workforce experts with senior nurses across the UK to agree a vision for the future and how to fight for it. When there are too few nursing staff, they can be stretched dangerously thin. With tens of thousands of vacant nurse posts across the UK right now, this happens too often. The summit heard compelling evidence about the impact of safe nurse-to-patient ratios, set in law in other countries, where there are limits on the number of patients one nurse can safely care for. Nicola Ranger, RCN's Chief Nurse, reflects on the outcome of the RCN’s first ever safe staffing summit.
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News Article
NHS nurses suffering shocking violence from patients, senior nurse warns
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Nurses are being put in increasing danger from shocking levels of violence and aggression by patients, a senior nursing leader has warned. Prof Nicola Ranger, the Royal College of Nursing’s (RCN) director of nursing, said the crisis in the NHS had fuelled bad behaviour by patients frustrated by worsening delays for treatment since the Covid pandemic. Ranger said the situation was contributing to an exodus of nurses from the NHS, amid a vicious cycle of staff shortages and rising violence. This meant that there were often not enough nurses on duty to keep colleagues safe, she added. Calling on the government to make tackling the abuse of nurses a priority, Ranger said there was a sense of despair in the profession about their deteriorating working conditions. “I think the public would be totally shocked if they knew how common it is for nursing staff to be on the receiving end of violence and aggression at work,” said Ranger. “Nurses are put in jeopardy, it’s become all too common for them to be threatened by patients on shift. “We genuinely have got a nursing crisis in the UK that doesn’t seem to be being acknowledged by our government at all. Being spat at, being hit, being punched, can for some nurses just literally be the final straw." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 January 2024
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