The idea of being a nurse – or, more specifically, a midwife – has always appealed to me. My mum worked as both during her time in the NHS, and I can remember as a child being fascinated by the small silver upside-down watch she clipped to her uniform, and the beautiful metal belt which laced together in the middle to keep her dress in place.
I knew early on that the romantic vision I had of nursing would meet with the harsh reality of the job itself, and that I didn’t really have it in me; though I often wonder if I might retrain one day.
But reading the Royal College of Nursing report into care in corridors you have to wonder why anyone in their right mind would choose to become a nurse in today’s NHS.
Over 400 pages, it sets out in raw and often depressing detail the battle nurses are fighting against poor care, failing resources and little to no support from managers in the health service.
From elderly patients in tears because they have been forced to wet themselves on a trolley in the main thoroughfare of a hospital, to women miscarrying in waiting rooms and people being told they are dying in a whisper because they’re lying in a corridor, the report makes shocking reading.
But shocking doesn’t quite cover it, because the voices of nurses contained in the report are angry too. They’re miserable, depressed – many write that they have already or intend to leave the profession because they simply cannot continue to look patients in the eye – but they’re also furious.
They’re furious at bosses who know what they have to deal with every day but can’t or won’t do anything about it. They’re angry over ambulance patients being prioritised over those who have been languishing on trolleys in cupboards and shower rooms, and in one case in the room where you’d view your dead relative. But more than anything they’re angry at politicians, because they can’t do the job they care so much about.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting knows this only too well. He’s heard many of these stories before and has admitted he feels “ashamed” at the way the NHS fails most winters, buckling under the pressure of flu and norovirus.
But also what stands out in the report is the pattern these desperate nurses describe. They talk mostly of elderly patients and those with dementia who are too unwell to be sent home, but who often see other cases prioritised in the queue because their own condition is a slow deterioration and not a broken arm or a stab wound.
In one anonymous account a nurse describes a patient dying because the hospital could not provide the right care at the right time: “This morning staff left in tears as we had a cardiac arrest in a corridor where we couldn’t move the bed to the resus area as there were other patients on beds blocking access. Sadly this lady died. Staff are trying so hard to deliver the best care possible in the most challenging of circumstances but they are all broken and I can’t tell my team that it is going to get better…”
Imagine if that was your mum? Your sister? Your grandma? And the report makes clear this isn’t a rare occurrence in a handful of hospitals; this is every day, up and down the country.
The NHS has given its most ominous warning yet
Read MoreWhen Streeting promised to fix waiting lists he was praised for his ambition and for being willing to admit that people are becoming more unwell as a result of not being seen quickly. But Dr Tim Cooksley, a former president of the Society for Acute Medicine, warned Streeting it was “immoral and deluded” to focus on ringfencing elective surgery beds to cut the backlog without doing something to stop the crisis in A&E and, crucially, tackle social care.
So far the Government has not come forward with a specific plan for this, save for a review conducted by Dame Louise Casey which will not report fully until 2028.
On Thursday Casey was revealed to be conducting a three-month review into grooming gangs before she begins this crucial work on care. Department of Health insiders say there will be no delay; others fear her attention will be divided between two of the biggest and most important questions we currently face. This is a tussle social care cannot afford to lose.
It is, sadly, easy to become numb to the cries of a failing NHS, and even to the tragic deaths that accompany them. But this report is different. It is a desperate wail from a group of people who are paid relatively poorly to do a job that most of us don’t have the stomach for, and which they do because they care.
They are telling us – and the Health Secretary – that they have had enough. They join many others in warning that solving the social care problem quickly is the only way to fix hospitals, where older people are dying an undignified and lonely death because they have nowhere else to go. Will he listen?
Kate McCann is political editor at Times Radio
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Nurses have had enough – and that spells trouble for Wes Streeting )
Also on site :
- A look at six bills in Albany awaiting Gov. Hochul’s signature
- This 'Iconic' Cereal is Finally Making a Comeback and Fans Going Wild: 'Holy Smokes'
- Israel tried to break Iran – but it may have actually helped unite it