How NHS staffing crisis is compromising patient care – survey
Posted 13 June 2023 - 04:59
Nursing staff describe how inadequate pay and poor staff retention combine to create high-pressure working environments, causing stress for patient and staff
More than half of nurses in a survey said short-staffing in the past year may have compromised patient care or left it unsafe.
A poll of 3,000 members of the union Unite working in the NHS in England found respondents in front-line roles were the most likely to feel low-staffing was harming care quality. Some 59% of the 343 nurses who responded said patient care was regularly compromised and 57% of ambulance staff agreed.
Four in five nurses said they had raised concerns about safe staffing, with 82% claiming their workplace was frequently short-staffed.
‘It appears impossible to retain staff’
Responses cited by Unite include an account from one mental health nurse in north west England, who said: ‘Unable to carry out basic nursing duties at times, unable to provide patient care and staff injured as a result of low staffing levels.’
‘Waiting times for appointments cause so much stress for patients and their families’
Nurse responding to Unite survey
More than 80% of nurses in the survey said they had considered leaving their current job due to workload and pay, with 69% saying they would leave the NHS for good.
Another nurse told the survey: ‘I work in a community mental health team where it appears impossible to retain staff due to the combined forces of low pay and ridiculous pressure. We have half the admin staff we should, less than half the nurses, and we're down to one full-time doctor where we should have at least three.
‘The waiting times for appointments cause so much stress for patients and their families, which ends up directed at our lowest-paid front-line staff and is then cascaded throughout the system, making working here feel untenable and putting further pressure on the staff who remain.’
Nursing pay levels and the cost of living create crisis that undermines patient care
Unsurprisingly, the cost-of-living crisis was identified as reason nursing staff were reconsidering their careers. More than 1,100 nursing staff said they had had to work extra shifts, take out loans, cancel holidays, miss meals or use food banks in the past year.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: ‘The survey’s findings are stark. Every day across England, patients are being put in danger due to staff shortages.
‘The current pay offer, in reality a real-terms pay cut, has done nothing to address the recruitment and retention crisis that is undermining patient care. Rather than tackling the causes of the crisis, the government is missing in action.’
Unite plans further strike action this week, with members from West Midlands Ambulance service striking on 12 June, along with members at the Christie hospital in Manchester and the City Hospital in Birmingham on Wednesday 14 June- the same days the British Medical Association junior doctors’ strike.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson restated a promise to publish the delayed NHS workforce plan ‘shortly’.
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