Patients are being left to die alone in UK hospitals due to a ‘dangerous’ shortage of nurses – only a third of services are fully staffed, report says
Patients are being left alone in hospital amid a ‘dangerous’ nurse shortage, a new report has found.
Research carried out by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has found that only a third of shifts have sufficient nurses on staff.
Shortages often require staff to care for dozens of patients at a time, with experts calling for safety-critical limits on the number of patients a single nurse can be responsible for.
A survey of more than 11,000 nurses showed that many were demotivated because they could not protect their patients, the RCN said.
In hospitals and community settings, only a third said their service had the planned number of registered nurses.
Patients are being left alone in hospital amid a ‘dangerous’ nurse shortage, a new report from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has found.
Acting general secretary of the RCN, Professor Nicola Ranger, said nurses are ‘fighting a losing battle to keep patients safe’
A significant number of nurses in the emergency department and outpatient clinic reported caring for more than 51 patients.
A nurse who works in the community in South West England said: ‘There are days when we are not allocated 60 visits because we don’t have enough staff.
‘We are always in a hurry.’
Another in the south of England said: ‘We are leaving over 50 patients in need of care unseen every day because of poor staffing levels.
‘This leads to more hospital admissions and deaths. It’s up to us to decide who is seen and who is missed, which is heartbreaking.”
At a hospital in the West Midlands, a nurse said: ‘I have not been able to sit with dying patients, which means they have been left alone to die.
‘I haven’t had the time to make sure patients are well fed and hydrated enough.’
And a midwife at a Yorkshire hospital said: ‘Completely unsafe care due to unacceptable staffing levels.’
Professor Nicola Ranger, acting general secretary of the RCN, said nurses were “fighting a losing battle for patient safety” and described staffing levels as “dangerous for patients and demotivating for nursing staff”.
She added: ‘We urgently need urgent investment in the nursing workforce, but also for the safety-critical ratio between nurses and patients to be enshrined in law.
‘This is how we improve care and prevent patients from being harmed.’