NHS: Nursing Workforce

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I completely acknowledge the phenomenon of burnout that the noble Lord rightly points out; the NHS people recovery taskforce, appointed to tackle exactly that problem, is very much focused on it. It works in conjunction with the NHS retention scheme and has led to the appointment of new well-being guardians, which have made a huge impact. The statistics suggest that the leaving ratio, previously at 10.3%, has now been reduced to 8.3%. That is an encouraging sign, but we have a number of other measures in place to ensure that retention remains upward at a time when, as he pointed out, nurses are under huge pressure.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, a group of Nightingale scholars has informed me that nurses are experiencing greater levels of abuse verbally, on social media and physically, together with racism; they attribute this in part to the long waiting lists and their duties in encouraging Covid vaccinations and mask wearing. Will the Government commit to furthering zero tolerance against violence and racism towards NHS staff, which the scholars argue would aid retention significantly?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises a really important point. We addressed it nearly 18 months ago, before the pandemic, when we had a crackdown on racism and abuse from patients. I would be very grateful if she could send me the details of her correspondence, and I shall look into whether we need to do more on that immediately.