Talking of the NHS... Another day, another survey — on this occasion, conducted by researchers from the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery (London), and published in the paper ‘BMJ Quality and Safety’. This time, the nurses were asked to comment on the incidences and frequency of ‘missed care’ events — that is, something they were each tasked to deliver during their shifts but didn’t get round to doing at all. The survey canvassed the opinions of 2917 nurses across 400 wards in 46 different hospitals, so was quite extensive! And guess what? It transpires that there are too few nurses to do the job properly, and that patient care is being ‘rationed’ as a consequence. In other words, it’s the same old story we’ve been hearing time and time again! The Government says this is not a problem of its making, and that staffing compliments remain the responsibility of individual hospitals and Trusts... Indeed...? See what I mean about artfully allowing the NHS to fail...? I say it’s time we stopped listening to the errant nonsense being espoused by our politicians about the NHS and listened, instead, to the concerns of the people who actually do the job! The health of the NHS is, I’m afraid, being gravely neglected. It is being asked to do too much with too little, and that’s a recipe for disaster! I don’t say that another Stafford Hospital debacle is necessarily on the cards (in many ways, that was the result of a ‘perfect storm’ of incompetence and failings!); but I do say that, unless the NHS is given the means to employ the numbers of staff it really needs, then there is no guarantee that patients won’t continue to needlessly die within our hospitals...
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 13:43:59 +0000