Nursing: Elderly and Vulnerable Patients

Baroness Emerton Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is quite right and there is now a renewed emphasis on that very point, with initiatives to help the nursing workforce practise to the highest clinical standards. These include Essence of Care, which outlines quality provision of the fundamentals of care, and Confidence in Caring, which improves nurse interaction with patients. While national initiatives such as those can stimulate thinking and offer guidance on best practice, it is really the local nurse leaders, team leaders, ward sisters and matrons who are key to setting and maintaining standards for quality and safety in their own clinical areas.

[Baroness Emerton]

My Lords, state enrolled nurses’ training was discontinued on the mere fact that those nurses were being abused and misused, because they were being asked to do tasks that were above the level of their competence. We are in the same situation now with these healthcare support workers, who are not trained to a level where they can accept the tasks being delegated to them. I ask the Government to look at this, because we cannot continue to misuse those support workers in the way in which we are—by their being given tasks which they are not suited to.

[Earl Howe]

The noble Baroness, with her expertise, makes a powerful point. We fully agree that there is an issue over unregistered healthcare assistants; I think the debate is around what we should do about it. We believe that the case for statutory regulation has not been made, although we would not close our minds to it. The point that the noble Baroness makes relates much more to nursing supervision, appropriate levels of delegation on a ward or in a care home, and appropriate supervision and training. That is a matter not for regulation but for nurse leaders in hospitals and care homes.