Exclusive: walkout over pay due to take place before Christmas
The biggest nursing strike in NHS history is set to take place before Christmas after union officials said that “large swathes of the country” had voted for industrial action.
Patients who are already facing record waiting lists are now likely to see operations and appointments delayed or cancelled. This is set to be the first national strike in the history of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
Continue reading...Catherine Poole tells prime minister to pay staff more, raising a finger and saying: ‘You need to try harder’
Rishi Sunak got a tase of how the “difficult decisions” he has said will guide spending cuts may go down with the public, when he was challenged by a hospital patient about nurses’ pay.
During a tour of Croydon University Hospital in south London, Sunak met NHS workers and posed for smiling selfies with them, but was confronted by 77-year old Catherine Poole.
Continue reading...Major disruption to NHS over winter feared if ballot of 300,000 staff over 5% pay increase results in industrial action
Hundreds of thousands of nurses across the UK are to be balloted about going on strike in a move that risks disrupting the NHS this winter.
For the first time in its 106-year history the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is balloting 300,000 of its members about strike action and recommending that they vote in favour.
Continue reading...Australian nursing and midwifery groups say Victoria’s scheme could see aspiring nurses leave their home states
Free university degrees for budding nurses in Victoria could exacerbate nationwide workforce shortages and pit states against each other, unions and peak bodies have warned.
The Victorian government on Sunday announced plans to pay the entire HECS debt of more than 10,000 nursing and midwifery graduates. Under the $270m scheme, all new domestic students enrolling in undergraduate nursing and midwifery courses in 2023 and 2024 will receive up to $16,500.
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Continue reading...Staffing crisis drives nurses to strike ballot amid warnings of cancelled operations and surge in admissions
The cost of living crisis will add further strain to an already imperilled NHS this autumn, experts have warned, amid concerns the healthcare crisis could deepen if urgent action is not taken.
Healthcare professionals say the NHS is at risk of a surge in hospital admissions, operations being cancelled en masse, and increasing difficulties over discharging patients if such pressures, potentially combined with a further wave of Covid and a bad flu season, are not tackled.
Continue reading...Poll reveals more than a quarter of UK hospital nurses have seen patients cared for in ‘inappropriate’ settings
Patients are being treated in the wrong places in UK hospitals, such as corridors and waiting areas, leaving them at risk of poor care, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warns today.
Hospitals are so overstretched and understaffed that patients are ending up being looked after in clinically “inappropriate” settings, where personnel may not have the right skills.
Continue reading...British Medical Association says move will put patients and healthcare workers in England at significant risk
Scrapping special Covid leave for NHS staff is “completely unacceptable” and will put patients and healthcare workers at significant risk, the British Medical Association has warned.
From 7 July the government plans to withdraw the special paid leave for Covid-related sickness and isolation for NHS staff in England, meaning they will revert to normal contractual sick pay arrangements.
Continue reading...Research by Royal College of Nursing suggests racism is ‘endemic’ in health and care
White nurses are twice as likely as black and Asian colleagues to be promoted in the NHS, with minority ethnic staff overlooked due to structural racism, according to research.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said its study suggests racism is “endemic” in health and care. A survey of almost 10,000 nursing staff found that those who are white or of a mixed ethnic background are more likely than black and Asian colleagues to have received at least one promotion since the start of their career.
Continue reading...Only a quarter of shifts have the planned number of registered nurses on duty, according to Royal College of Nursing report
Only a quarter of nursing shifts have the planned number of registered nurses on duty, a survey of more than 20,000 frontline staff has suggested.
According to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), most nurses warn that staffing levels on their last shift were not sufficient to meet the needs of patients, and that some are now quitting their jobs.
The RCN said the findings shone a light on the impact of the UK’s nursing staff shortage, warning that nurses were being “driven out” of their profession.
British anaesthetist pleads for doctors and nurses to be allowed naps and limited night shifts, as in other critical workplaces
About half of all hospital doctors and nurses have had accidents or experienced near misses while driving home after a night shift.
The risks they pose to themselves and other road users have been calculated as the same as those posed by drivers who are over the legal alcohol limit, delegates at a European medical conference were told last week.
Continue reading...International nurses working for NHS trusts are being trapped in their jobs by clauses in their contracts that require them to pay thousands of pounds if they try to leave. Shanti Das reports
Nurses are the backbone of the NHS. For the past two years as Covid-19 gripped the country, people lauded NHS staff as heroes. Many nurses join the NHS from abroad, attracted by the stability of the work, the ethos and a chance for a new life in the UK. But joining the NHS from abroad comes with strings attached.
The Observer’s Shanti Das tells Nosheen Iqbal that some nurses working for NHS trusts and private care homes are being trapped in their jobs by clauses in their contracts that require them to pay thousands of pounds if they try to leave. In extreme cases, nurses are tied to their roles for up to five years and face fees as steep as £14,000 if they want to change jobs or need to return home early.
More nurses leave NHS than at any time since Covid struck, many reporting stress as their main reason
More than 27,000 nurses and midwives quit the NHS last year, with many blaming job pressures, the Covid pandemic and poor patient care for their decision.
The rise in staff leaving their posts across the UK – the first in four years – has prompted concern that frontline workers are under too much strain, especially with the NHS-wide shortage of nurses.
Continue reading...Union pushing for proposal to create board to oversee industry in wake of pandemic that has decimated staffing
Jesus Figueroa Cacho, a certified nursing assistant of the Sacramento, California area, has worked in the nursing home industry for about 25 years.
She consistently works 16 hour long shifts, 60 to 80 hours per week, often working through breaks and not getting paid overtime because her employer she works night shifts and overtime accrual resets at 1am every day, in the middle of her shifts. Figueroa Cacho said her facility is severely understaffed, often with just two nurses to care for around 50 patients.
Continue reading...Experts call on ministers to tackle chronic staff shortages, with delays worsened by pandemic
Tens of thousands of patients are still waiting to start cancer treatment in England due to disruption during the pandemic, according to NHS figures, as medical charities called on the government to tackle chronic staff shortages in the health service.
Following a dramatic slump in cancer referrals in 2020, the number of people being investigated for the disease bounced back in the past year, data from NHS England and NHS Improvement show, rising from 2.4 million to a record 2.66 million.
Continue reading...Ukrainian expat raises money to rescue last 12 residents of hospice in Chasiv Yar on frontline of Russian invasion
Elderly residents trapped at a nursing home near the frontline of war in eastern Ukraine are to be evacuated thanks to donations from a fundraiser held thousands of miles away in New Orleans in the US.
Ukrainian-born Katya Chizayeva, who now lives in the Louisiana city, organised the event at a restaurant after reading in the Guardian about the plight of residents at the facility in Chasiv Yar, a Donbas village just kilometres away from the frontline. A total of $8,000 (£6,351) was raised for the nursing home.
Continue reading...Lawyers and unions condemn scandal of international health workers forced to pay out if they quit their jobs early
• Overseas nurses in the UK forced to pay out thousands if they want to quit jobs
When Laura Sanchez was offered a job as a nurse in the NHS, it sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime.
At home in the Philippines, she had seen Facebook ads similar to those on the site today, promising “an attractive relocation package” and inviting her to “Start your UK dream!”
Continue reading...I’ve seen people die without their family. It used to bring me to tears. Now I just feel weary
My therapist says it’s OK that sometimes I feel dead inside.
I’m a critical care nurse. I worked in intensive care for all of 2020 and 2021.
Continue reading...At least six trusts in have issued alerts as fears grow vital care will be compromised by workforce absence
Multiple NHS trusts across England have declared “critical incidents” amid soaring staff absences caused by Covid-19, with health leaders saying many parts of the service are now “in a state of crisis”.
Boris Johnson on Monday ruled out the introduction of new curbs “for now” but said he recognised that the pressure on the NHS and its hospitals, was “going to be considerable in the course of the next couple of weeks, and maybe more”.
Continue reading...Bodies in 28 countries file appeal for waiver of intellectual property agreement and end to ‘grossly unjust’ distribution of jabs
Nursing unions in 28 countries have filed a formal appeal with the United Nations over the refusal of the UK, EU and others to temporarily waive patents for Covid vaccines, saying this has cost huge numbers of lives in developing nations.
The letter, sent on Monday on behalf of unions representing more than 2.5 million healthcare workers, said staff have witnessed at first hand the “staggering numbers of deaths and the immense suffering caused by political inaction”.
Continue reading...Lack of EU staff adding to shortages: ‘There aren’t enough to deliver care we need’
Ministers are being warned of a mounting workforce crisis in England’s hospitals as they struggle to recruit staff for tens of thousands of nursing vacancies, with one in five nursing posts on some wards now unfilled.
Hospital leaders say the nursing shortfall has been worsened by a collapse in the numbers of recruits from Europe, including Spain and Italy.
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