Latest news: NHS to make redundancies

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) suggests that the strain on nurses working in the NHS will increase as one in twenty will lose their jobs in the next 12 months. 10/10/2011

The new figures suggest that around 15,000 nurses and health care assistants in the NHS, a total of 5%, will lose their jobs in the next year. A further 7% expect to be down-banded and 6% are expecting their working hours to be cut.

‘Nurses are at the heart of all that is good about the NHS and this is yet more evidence that the frontline is not being protected. We know the Government wants to protect services but nurses are wilting under the strain of longer working hours, taking on the burden on unfilled vacancies and reduced staffing levels,’ says Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal Nursing College.

‘All these short term measures are likely to leave patients with longer waiting times, poor care and a worse NHS. It is absolutely critical that trusts make sure they have the right numbers and balance of staff to deal with this,’ adds Dr Carter.

The report goes on to suggest that more than half of NHS workers (57%) work in excess of their contracted hours several times a week or every shift. Patient care is also suffering according to nurses with 52% saying they were too busy to provide the care they would like with nearly a third reportedly saying that the quality of care was decreasing.

The survey was conducted by Incomes Date Services for the Royal College of Nursing and is carried out every two years.