Corridor care and "degrading" waiting rooms leading nurses to feel "broken”
Over nine in ten emergency care nurses feel worried that patients may be receiving unsafe care and that patient dignity, privacy and confidentiality is being compromised, a survey by the nurses’ union has revealed.
Five hundred specialist A&E nurses shared their experience of overcrowded hospitals and increased ‘corridor care’ as they struggle to do their job properly in what they describe as “degrading” conditions.
More than six in ten nurses who were surveyed felt the situation was so bad that they feared being struck off the nursing register or facing a court case as a result of patient harm.
Furthermore, two thirds have faced increased violence or aggression from frustrated patients and relatives, while a third didn’t feel confident enough to raise concerns about the impact of inappropriate settings for providing care.
The survey results come as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) carries out their annual conference this week where general secretary and chief executive Pat Cullen has urged the Prime Minster to come back to the table to discuss nursing pay.
During the Congress, staff are sharing their harrowing stories of the conditions that nursing staff are working under.
Delegates at the conference will be discussing the impact of ‘corridor care’ which the union said has become more common as a lack of GP appointments has led to increased demand in A&E.
Also a lack of community care provision has led to hospitals being unable to discharge patients, as bed capacity run at dangerous levels and patients in emergency departments can’t be moved on to wards.
Emergency care staff are therefore providing care in inappropriate settings that are unable to cope with high patient numbers.
Nurses have described feeling “broken” and “suicidal” due to the working conditions and corridor care becoming the norm, leading nurses to leave the NHS as a result.
Cullen said it painted a “bleak” picture right across the NHS, stating that, “a corridor is no place to die and no place to work either”.
“When ministers fail to grip this situation, they allow patients to pay a high price and nursing staff to work in fear, professionally compromised,” warned Cullen.
“Governments must urgently plan and invest to reverse this new trend.”
Speaking ahead of the RCN Congress debate, an emergency care nurses said caring for patients in corridors is “destroying” staff morale, and added that dealing with patients this way “makes you feel you’re a terrible nurse”.
Addressing members yesterday at the annual conference, Cullen said our health and care system was “brutally unfair” on patients and that the conditions felt “intolerable” for many nurses, reiterating that “nurses are striking because patients are dying”.
Next Tuesday RCN members working for the NHS in England will receive fresh ballots on whether they want to continue strike action since members voted to reject the government’s recent NHS pay offer of 5%.
The government has said the RCN needs to accept the current NHS pay offer which the Department of Health said was final.
Hannah Davenport is trade union reporter at Left Foot Forward
(Photo credit: Flickr / Creative Commons)
Left Foot Forward’s trade union reporting is supported by the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust
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