Exclusive: union leaders say proposed changes are immoral and could threaten patient safety if there is staff exodus
Up to 50,000 nurses could quit the UK over the government’s immigration proposals, plunging the NHS into its biggest ever workforce crisis, research suggests.
Keir Starmer has vowed to curb net migration, with plans to force migrants to wait as long as 10 years to apply to settle in the UK instead of automatically gaining settled status after five years.
Continue reading...Understaffing driving workers to ill health and discouraging them for taking leave, says Royal College of Nursing CEO
Nurses across the UK are working while unwell in understaffed hospitals, with stress as the leading cause of illness, according to research.
A survey by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) of more than 20,000 nursing staff found that 66% had worked when they should have been on sick leave, up from 49% in 2017.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing calls on government to stop using anti-migrant rhetoric, which it says emboldens racist behaviour
The number of reports by nurses of racist incidents at work has risen by 55% over three years, according to analysis by the nursing union.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) expects to receive more than 1,000 calls this year from nurses seeking advice and support after racist incidents in the workplace, compared with almost 700 cases in 2022.
Continue reading...NHS figures show rise in violence against nurses to 4,054 incidents last year, with long waits for care often a factor
Attacks on A&E nurses have almost doubled over the last six years, with incidents often involving patients frustrated at waiting so long for care.
Nurses have been punched, spat at, pinned up against a wall, had a gun pointed at them and been threatened with having acid thrown at them, according to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
Continue reading...Countess of Chester receives urgent warning notice over ‘visibly dirty equipment’ and routine corridor care
Emergency care at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked is falling far short of legal standards, the healthcare watchdog has found, with routine corridor care and “critical gaps” in sepsis treatment.
The Countess of Chester hospital, in north-west England, was issued with an urgent warning notice after inspectors found “repeated breaches” of regulations in its emergency care unit.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing urges ministers to improve 3.6% offer to avoid industrial action ballot later this year
Nine out of 10 nurses have rejected a 3.6% pay award for this year and warned they could strike later this year unless their salaries are improved.
In an indicative vote among members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 91% said the 3.6% rise was not enough.
Continue reading...Exclusive: RCN’s Nicola Ranger says nurses could ‘bare our teeth’ as they seek restoration of lost earnings
Nurses deserve a 25% pay rise and may go on strike again unless ministers dramatically improve their “completely unacceptable” 2.8% offer to NHS staff, the profession’s leader has said.
Prof Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said nurses wanted full restoration of lost earnings and could “bare our teeth” in pursuit of that goal.
Continue reading...Ex-nurse says inquiry should be suspended until review of convictions has finished
Lucy Letby has called for the public inquiry into her crimes to be halted, arguing there is now “overwhelming and compelling” evidence undermining her baby murder convictions.
Lawyers for the former nurse took the extraordinary step of writing to Lady Justice Thirlwall on Monday to say that the inquiry – which is due to end on Wednesday – should be suspended immediately.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Nursing union says it continues to receive complaints about low pay, unfit housing and illegal fees
Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees.
Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.
Continue reading...Two-year-old waited in emergency department for three hours before suffering a cardiac arrest and dying. Follow today’s news headlines live
Victoria to offer contactless public transport tickets from next year
Victorians will be able to use their phones, bank cards or smartwatches to pay for public transport travel from “early next year in a staged approach”, according to reports.
Following a successful start of a ticketless bus trial in Wangaratta, the Allan Labor Government will begin switching on tap-and-go technology across Victoria’s public transport network from early next year in a staged approach – meaning some passengers will soon be able to use their bank cards, phones and smart watches to travel on full fare tickets.
The new ticketing system will continue to be underpinned by extensive technical testing and will be carefully rolled out starting with rail from the beginning early next year – allowing full fare passengers more ways to pay for their travel.
Continue reading...Warning from the Royal College of Nursing is based on Nuffield Trust analysis of NHS England staff surveys
The NHS in England is facing a “ticking timebomb” when it comes to retaining young staff, nursing leaders have warned, after new analysis showed its generation Z workers are becoming more stressed and unhappy over time.
A new report by the Nuffield Trust shows soaring dissatisfaction rates among staff in the health service’s youngest cohort, aged 21 to 30 – based on analysis of NHS surveys.
Continue reading...Mark Butler says pair have had their nurses’ registrations suspended following their ‘sickening comments’
New South Wales police have spoken to an Israeli influencer who they say has agreed to provide investigators with an unedited version of a video chat in which two Bankstown hospital nurses allegedly threatened Israeli patients.
The video attracted widespread political condemnation after it was published by the Israeli content creator Max Veifer and led to the male nurse issuing an apology. The video depicted an edited online conversation Veifer had with the two staff members on a video chat platform similar to Chatroulette.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: ‘No scientific justification’ to say former nurse definitely poisoned babies with insulin, according to study authors
The claim that Lucy Letby definitely poisoned babies with insulin has “no scientific justification whatsoever” and there is a “very strong level of reasonable doubt” about the convictions, according to the authors of a 100-page study on the case.
Prof Geoff Chase, one of the world’s foremost experts on the effect of insulin on pre-term babies, told the Guardian it was “very unlikely” anyone had administered potentially lethal doses to two of the infants.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing says people ‘routinely coming to harm’ with vital equipment not available and staff too busy
Patients are dying in hospital corridors and going undiscovered for hours, while others who suffer heart attacks cannot be given CPR because of overcrowding in walkways, a bombshell report on the state of the NHS has revealed.
So many patients are being cared for in hospital corridors across the UK that in some cases pregnant women are having miscarriages outside wards while other patients are unable to call for help because they have no call bell and are subjected to “animal-like conditions”, said the Royal College of Nursing.
Patients have died on trolleys and chairs in corridors and waiting rooms in settings where “all the fundamentals of care have broken down”.
One nurse had seen “cardiac arrests in the corridor with no crash bell, crash trolley, oxygen, defibrillator … straddling a patient doing CPR while everyone watches on”.
Patients are being given drugs, intravenous infusions and, in one case, a blood transfusion in corridors which are cold, noisy and too cramped to allow them to have loved ones present.
One nurse had to tell a patient he was dying as other patients were wheeled past and orders were shouted across the unit. They said: “How is it fair to tell someone they are dying in a corridor?”
Lack of space means patients also being treated in storerooms, car parks, offices and even toilets.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing says Labour has a duty to fix health ‘double whammy’ by raising aid and funding for UK nursing
The UK cut health aid to some of the world’s vulnerable countries at the same time as recruiting thousands of their nurses, in a “double whammy” for fragile health systems, new analysis has found.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which carried out the research, said Labour had a “duty to fix” aid cuts imposed by the previous government, and to work on increasing the UK’s domestic supply of nurses.
Continue reading...Consultant who raised concerns says there could have been earlier victims she has not been convicted of killing
Lucy Letby was likely to have harmed more babies than those she has been convicted of murdering on a hospital neonatal unit, a senior doctor has told a public inquiry.
Dr Stephen Brearey, a consultant paediatrician who raised concerns about the nurse, told the Thirlwall inquiry he believed Letby “didn’t start becoming a killer” in June 2015 and that she may have had earlier victims.
Continue reading...Christian and Muslim groups say medics who refuse to help patients die not protected in England and Wales bill
A significant proportion of NHS medical staff are likely to exercise a conscience clause if assisted dying is legalised by parliament.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill stipulates that no doctor would be under any obligation to participate in assisted dying.
Continue reading...Numbers leaving within 10 years of registering rose by 43% between 2021 to 2024, finds Royal College of Nursing
Increasing numbers of UK-trained nurses are set to leave the profession in England within a decade of registering, in a trend that could jeopardise the government’s overhaul of healthcare, according to a union.
More than 11,000 will have quit the register within their first 10 years on it, according to analysis by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) of the latest official figures.
Continue reading...Nurse says she has lost ‘my name, my integrity’ after being accused of using proxy to sit tests to work in Britain
When I was a little girl in my village in Nigeria going to school was something I could not even dream of because we did not have money. Then my mother sold everything we owned to pay for me to go to school.
I knew this was my only ticket to make something worthwhile out of my life and my family’s life.
Continue reading...Chancellor says £22bn gap in current spending budget and state pension rise meant she had to make decision on means-testing fuel payments
In interview this morning Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, defended her own decision to accept clothing donations worth £7,500 when she was in opposition.
Speaking on the Today programme, she said:
I can understand why people find it a little bit odd that politicians get support for things like buying clothes.
Now, when I was an opposition MP, when I was shadow chancellor of the exchequer, a friend of mine who I’ve known for years [Juliet Rosenfeld] – she’s a good personal friend – wanted to support me as shadow chancellor and the way she wanted to support me was to finance my office to be able to buy clothes for the campaign trail and for big events and speeches that I made as shadow chancellor.
It’s never something that I planned to do as a government minister, but it did help me in opposition.
It’s rightly the case that we don’t ask taxpayers to fund the bulk of the campaigning work and the research work that politicians do, but that does require, then, donations – from small donations, from party members and supporters, from larger contributions, from people who have been very successful in life and want to give something back.
We appreciate that support. It’s part of the reason why we are in government today, because we were able to do that research work, and we were able to do that campaigning.
Unite and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have put forward motions which were due to be debated on Monday afternoon, with strong support expected from other unions.
Sources said unions were told late on Sunday that the debate is being moved to Wednesday morning.
Continue reading...