Nursing Workforce Shortage: England

Debate between Jamie Stone and Mohammad Yasin

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the nursing workforce shortage in England.

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I start by recognising the skills and expertise that nurses bring. Nursing shortages impact on patient care and staff wellbeing. Wherever there are people, there are nursing staff. They work in public services, across the NHS, social care, public health and the independent sector. They are with us at every stage in life, from birth to death. I am grateful for all that health and care staff do in my constituency and across the country.

This debate was secured in response to petitions handed in by nurses from the Royal College of Nursing, calling on the Government to fix the workforce crisis. I am pleased to be their voice—and that of everyone who works in the health profession—in Westminster today, and call on the Government to do all they can to tackle nursing shortages, which have huge knock-on effects on our NHS and wider health and care system, as well as on patient safety and staff wellbeing.

There are about 40,000 nursing vacancies in health and care services in England. In my region, the east of England, the nurse vacancy rate is 10.7%, which amounts to more than 3,600 nurses. Worryingly, the vacancy rate for mental health nurses in my region is even higher, at 15.3%. Nurses are crucial in health promotion and improving population health, yet the numbers of health visitors, school nurses, community nurses and district nurses have dropped at a rapid rate and are in long-term decline. We need to see significant growth in the NHS cancer workforce as well.

I expect that the Minister will tell me that almost 8,000 more nurses work in the NHS since this time last year. Although that figure is correct, it must, as with all stats, be viewed in the relevant context. That is a growth rate of just 0.4%, which is nowhere near the scale needed to provide enough nurses now or in the future. The pace of growth is not sufficient to reassure patients that we have a workforce ready to meet their needs, and it is nowhere near the rate needed to cope with the increasing demands that are predicted to be placed on the NHS by our ageing population.

For every NHS nurse employed in hospitals last year, there was an equivalent of 214 admissions. Patient need is rising faster than the growth in our nursing workforce. Social care and public health are also without thousands more nurses. It is difficult to calculate the number of vacancies in those settings because the data is incomplete. We have no understanding of plans to support and fund social care, which I hope the new Minister will confirm are a priority.

Nursing shortages directly impact on patient safety. Even with the small increase in staff numbers, hospitals and other services are struggling more than ever. Last week, the RCN published findings from a survey of emergency care nurses, who are increasingly forced to provide care in corridors. Some 95% of survey respondents said that patient dignity is compromised, and 92% worry that patients may be receiving unsafe care. December saw the worst performances on record for A&E departments in England, with every single department failing to meet the four-hour waiting time target. Those stats should alarm us all. Chronic underfunding has led us to this point.

Trust papers from Bedford Hospital, a district general in my area, show just how intense the pressures are on our frontline workers. Staff are doing as much as they can to keep patients safe and to provide high-quality care, but the situation is outside their control. Staffing shortages are systemic, and addressing them requires political will and action.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions staffing shortages. My vast and remote constituency, which has a large and ageing population and is the most remote mainland constituency in the UK, has problems not only with recruitment but particularly with retention. Health is devolved to the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government, but as and when the UK Government develop an approach to keeping people in the most remote and rural areas, where they are needed most, I hope that that intelligence will be shared with the Scottish Government.

[Mohammad Yasin]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There are nursing shortages in every part of the country, and nurses are struggling to provide good care. I will come to that point in a moment.

Nursing shortages also impact on staff wellbeing. One testimony from an emergency nurse describes the realities of working in the profession:

“When I witnessed elderly patients being assisted onto bed pans while on ambulance trolleys, surrounded by paramedics, other patients on trolleys, and relatives all squashed in a freezing corridor…I realised that I can no longer preserve or protect my patient’s dignity, and that I am failing them as a nurse. Dignity is the first thing that the patients are stripped of when in a queue in a dark, cold corridor, closely followed by safety.”

Sharon, a community nurse who recently responded to a House of Commons digital debate on this Westminster Hall debate, said:

“I have worked in my locality for four and a half years. In that time, we have never been fully staffed. This puts enormous pressure on the whole team and many people have left because of it. Often, we are rushed, we forget things, and we cannot give the quality of care that we would like as we are just too thinly spread. Many of us end catching up on our notes or management at home, working way over our contracted hours. We are exhausted, frustrated and disappointed.”

This is an appalling situation for all concerned, and I know from these responses that this happens daily in hospitals up and down the country. Talk of a winter crisis is meaningless when staff and patients experience crisis every day, all year round. We must all focus on fixing this.

There is a long-term plan for the NHS, but its ambitions are dependent on having enough nurses. We have no funded workforce plan, even though it was promised by the Government when they announced the funding allocations back in the summer of 2018. Will the Minister tell us when the long-promised NHS people plan will be published, and whether it will include bold and funded policies to recruit, train and retain vital nursing staff to meet the needs of our population?

Nursing students in England can receive grants of up to £5,000 a year, and for some they can go up to £8,000. However, these do not reflect the true cost of living. Just as importantly, tuition fees are also a huge burden on nursing students, and it is important that this is addressed in the forthcoming Budget. As a father of four, I believe that financial barriers to education must be removed.