NHS: Standards of Care and Commissioning

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Emerton]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg, for raising this timely debate. Without doubt, corrective action is required to deal with these issues. They will not go away unless that happens. This fact is reflected in the 57 per cent increase on last year in referrals from the general public to the Nursing and Midwifery Council fitness to practice committee in the months of January and February this year. The total was 833—a dramatic increase.

On 3 March, I asked when the Government were going to respond to the report of the Prime Minister’s commission on nursing and midwifery, published in March 2010. I declare an interest: I am proud to say that I am a nurse and that I was on the commission. The Minister replied that he would check where the Government were on the formal reply. I raise this again as no response has been received and because a year was spent by 20 senior and distinguished nurses, midwives and health visitors looking at the problems that faced us.

Evidence was collected following meetings with the public, stakeholders and students, and left the commissioners in no doubt that a “care quake” was approaching—driven by healthcare trends, social changes, demographic changes, families outsourcing care, growing numbers of people with long-term conditions and the additional complex conditions resulting from the ageing process. The nursing professions are centre-stage to handle the care quake, but must be properly equipped and supplied to deliver truly compassionate care that is skilled, competent, values-based and that respects patients' dignity with clear, respectful communication to patients and relatives.

We gathered from extensive engagements with the public that they felt strongly that the public image of the nursing, midwifery and health-visiting professions is out of date and that a new story of nursing is needed. The clearest message was that the traditional image of the front-line sister or leader of a community nursing service should be restored to the former point of visible authority and clear leadership role, answering the cry, “Who is in charge?”, at front-line level.

The commissioners set to work to make recommendations for the largest single workforce in Europe. There are currently in excess of 625,000 nurses on the register. The NHS nursing and midwifery pay bill is £12 billion, with more than £l billion spent on pre-registration nursing and midwifery education. There is little research on the cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit of nursing-led services, and existing research is often ignored. A recent scoping review commissioned by the Nursing and Midwifery Council found that there were 300,000 healthcare support workers in the NHS that were unregistered, posing a potential risk to patient safety. Recently the Mid Staffordshire complaints officer stated in evidence to a public inquiry that the ratio of trained nurses to support workers had swung to 40 per cent trained and 60 per cent healthcare assistants over the period 2002 to 2009. That was a change to address the £10 million overspend in the trust.

The move to make nursing a degree-level profession by 2013 is an integral step in ensuring that registered nurses and midwives have an academic base to translate into high-level, quality compassionate care.

Of the nursing commission’s 20 recommendations, I wish briefly to highlight four. The commission said that the nursing, midwifery and health-visiting professions should deliver high-quality care and that leaders should accept full managerial and professional accountability for ensuring that the organisation provides high-quality, compassionate care. The boards should ensure that care champions strengthen the front-line managers—for example, sisters and charge nurses. There was a call for advanced practitioners and healthcare support workers to be regulated, protecting the title “nurse” and limiting its use to those on the NMC register. This would be equivalent to “enrolled nurse”, as has already been mentioned. Another recommendation was that nurses and midwives should contribute to health and well-being, reducing health inequalities.

I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will respond quickly and positively to the commission’s recommendations, which all go towards achieving an improved nursing profession that will meet the needs of the community with compassion and with respect for the elderly.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, perhaps I may remind noble Lords, as I did in the previous debate, that we have a very tight time limit in this debate. Therefore, when the Clock reaches “4”, noble Lords will have completed their allotted four minutes.