The UK is currently in the midst of something widely described as a ‘nursing crisis’.
In reality, the whole NHS is stuttering – but nursing is an area of particular concern.
Last January, the health service released its Long Term Plan, a document that sets out its priorities for healthcare over the next 10 years.
The document states that there are ‘significant staff shortages across the country in many parts of our workforce; however, shortages in nursing are the single biggest and most urgent we need to address’.
There are vacancies across all areas of nursing, with the most significant shortages in mental health, learning disability, primary and community nursing.
In hospital and community health services, there are around 40,000 reported vacancies in substantive nursing posts, with around 80 per cent of these shifts currently covered by bank and agency staff, and there are further pressures in primary care.
The report warns that this gap ‘widens to 68,500 (16 per cent) by 2023-24 without intervention, as demand for nurses grows faster than supply’.
The document puts the reasons behind these pressures down to the demand for health and care services as a result of a growing and ageing population, and the ever-increasing possibilities of medical science.
In December last year, the Conservative manifesto pledged to deliver ‘50,000 more nurses’ by 2024/25 – only for Boris Johnson to admit later that it would be only 31,000 new nurses, with the other 19,000 being nurses who already work for the NHS, and will be retained, or those coaxed back by return-to-practice initiatives.
The proposals were widely criticised and NHS workforce chief, Gavin Larner, allegedly slammed them in a private email for not having ‘trajectories or milestones’.
None of the proposals have yet translated into actual policy.
Brexit turmoil has also influenced nursing, with many foreign health professionals not knowing where they will stand post-EU exit.
Proposals released in 2018, stating that migrants would have to earn at least £30,000 a year would have barred more than 40 per cent of migrant nurses joining the NHS in 2017-18, according to the Nuffield Trust thinktank.
The think tank put the dire situation down to ‘poor planning and insufficient training numbers over many years’.
According to ONS figures, there were over one million people (913,789 full-time equivalents) working in healthcare roles in NHS hospitals in England in March 2019: six per cent were EU nationals and eight per cent non-EU nationals (excluding NHS infrastructure support staff).
Additionally, many point to the decision by George Osborne, as chancellor, to stop paying nursing students’ tuition fees and maintenance grants as a key factor in the nursing crisis.
The Conservatives have back tracked on the austerity measures rolled out two years ago, and are set to start paying young nurses’ bursaries again in September this year.
Their 2019 manifesto states that there will be 14,000 new nursing places, 5,000 nursing apprenticeships and an attempt to recruit 12,500 nursing professionals from abroad.
The NHS 10-year plan has a focus on retention. In partnership with NHS Employers, NHS Improvement launched the Retention Programme in June 2017.
The body says it aims to increase undergraduate supply of nurses, to stimulate demand and shift perceptions and that it wants to ‘improve the student experience and reduce attrition.’
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