Agenda item

Marie Hannah, Regional Officer (Nottinghamshire) at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) provided an update to the Committee regarding the issues currently faced by nurses.  The following information was provided:

(a)  staffing shortages and vacancy levels are barriers to recruiting new nurses as newly qualified nurses are aware of the challenges of working on understaffed wards from the placement experience;

(b)  RCN is concerned about staffing shortages across the NHS, particularly within acute care for Emergency and elderly cases.

  Further concerns including care homes and acute beds facing closure; these all impact on workloads;

(c)  acute hospitals in England have had an issue with their staffing levels.  Trusts are in competition with one another.  An NUH staff survey shows a reduction in the proportion of staff that recommends the trust as a place to work;

(d)  the government is planning to replace student nurse bursaries with loans.  This could affect the number of young people from applying as they do not want to take on significant debt with limited earning capacity and also older people who may have applied as a significant proportion of them carry existing debts, and may be unlikely to want to take on additional debt.

  The bursary funds a lot of travel expenses, and funds the educational package.  The starting salary for a nurse is comparably low, so they will struggle to pay the loan off.  Trainee Midwives will also be affected by the withdrawal of the bursary;

(e)  members of the nursing workforce are often patients or carers themselves, and can endure mental health problems; there have been examples of lack of support for this from managers.  There is also a growing concern for nurses that fall foul of policies such as sickness absence; RCN is seeing a large number of nurses exiting trusts as they cannot meet the targets they have been set.  In addition, members are reporting being overworked and undervalued;

(f)  RCN Council revalidation process starts next year, involving a lot of work with organisations around the meaning of the workforce and the employer;

(g)  NUH use staff from Europe, but as yet, there has been any recruitment from outside of this area.  Traditionally, some of the cultural difficulties of settling combined with delays in gaining registration can prevent nurses coming from abroad;

(h)  work continues with Health Education East Midlands on targeting nurses from further education, however the uncertainty around bursaries can make it difficult to recruit.  There are also career talks in schools through the RCN, but with a small team, this is becoming increasingly hard to do, and might be more suitable for organisations such as Health Education England;

(i)  one of the difficulties with the career pathway in nursing is the transition from support worker to nurse.  Another route to becoming a nurse can be through the Open University (OU) – degrees through the OU can be fully funded by the RCN but there will be a duty to the RCN as a result;

(j)  degree entry for nurses has been required for some time, and RCN would like this to continue.  At the same, RCN recognises that there is a huge raft of very skilled capable people with no degree who can bring their common sense approach to nursing;

(k)  there is campaigning on a national level through Citizens UK to get the contract care certificate accepted;

(l)  most organisations have been told that if they want to use agency staff, different caps are applicable.  These are in the region of 3-4% of agency staff.

RESOLVED to ask Marie Hannah to return in a year’s time for a further update.