“Patient safety is about people being cared for in an


The Nursing Week News


appropriate setting” JP Nolan p5


Trusts “across England” looking to leave Agenda for Change


Exclusive Shaun Lintern shaun.lintern@emap.com


Society, questioned whether it was the best use of resources to use registered nurses to clean, but said not being prepared to do any at all was unacceptable. She said the most important


thing was that everybody knew who was responsible for different cleaning duties. “Nurses are the guardians


of the standards of their wards… Cleaning has always been an integral part of what nurses do,” she said. “The risk comes when there is a lack of clarity about process and who is responsible because then you get things that nobody cleans.” ● See The Big Question, page 9


WHAT YOU SAID


“Patients seeing nurses cleaning think they are doctors’ dogsbodies and servants – and treat them accordingly”


“I would draw the line at washing fl oors but the bed is the patient’s habitat and I have no objection to cleaning this”


“Why spend three years doing a degree to spend our time mopping a fl oor and wiping down beds?”


Hospital managers across the country are looking to emulate attempts in the South West to break away from the national Agenda for Change agreement. The man leading the South


West Pay Consortium has told Nursing Times other NHS regions are considering forming their own similar groups. Chris Bown, chief executive of Poole Hospitals Foundation Trust, is chair of the consortium of 20 trusts, which has been dubbed a “pay cartel” by unions. In his fi rst in-depth


interview since setting up the consortium, he said he had been contacted by hospital managers from “across England” who were investigating taking their own action to reduce staff pay, terms and conditions. He said managers were becoming “increasingly frustrated” at the lack of progress in lengthy national negotiations between unions and NHS Employers over proposals to alter Agenda for Change.


Chris Bown: managers across the country may follow suit


As revealed by Nursing


Times last month, Unite has become the fi rst union to reject the proposals currently on the table, which were put forward by NHS Employers on behalf of the government (news, 21 August, page 2). But Mr Bown claimed his consortium was facing up to “practicalities” and it was increasingly likely other regions would take their own action to try and cut the NHS pay bill. “Across England people


from other trusts have contacted me to say ‘we will see how it goes with you but we are equally frustrated and we’re thinking about forming


our own consortium’,” he said. Mr Bown insisted there was


a need for trusts to save money and warned that widespread job losses could result if something was not done to reduce the NHS pay bill further. He said: “We can’t continue


to maintain the same level of employees with the economic challenges we are all facing. We will need to reduce workforce even further in the NHS if we don’t do something else.” But unions have reacted


with anger at the consortium’s attempt to move away from the national pay framework and have insisted the group is undermining national negotiations. A petition against the consortium has been signed by nearly 20,000 people and a protest was held last week outside North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple. The consortium has drawn


up a list of 28 potential changes to staff pay, terms


and conditions. ● Read more on this story online at nursingtimes.net


Workforce: clash of values between young and old


The mix of ages within the nursing workforce can increase stress levels and affect patient care in the process, researchers have claimed. They are calling on nursing


directors to ensure confl ict between age groups is kept to a minimum and nurses appreciate the values of each other’s age groups. The researchers, from


the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, based their conclusions on a survey of 138 hospital nurses. Their fi ndings suggested a more


diverse age group could lead to a “clash of values” due to different styles of training received, technology competency and varying communication patterns. This could lead to increased stress, work-life imbalance and reduced commitment, they warned in the journal Nursing and Health Sciences. “While age diversity can


lead to increased creativity and a greater richness of values and skills, it can also lead to value clashes, disrespect of each other’s viewpoints, and increased


confl ict,” they stated. Study author Zhike Lei


added: “The handover of patients from nurse to nurse is a vital moment in a patient’s care. However, when younger nurses refuse to take older nurses seriously, and older nurses refuse to listen to junior nurses, the patient is the one who suffers.” Professor Lei called on managers to devote adequate time to developing trust between their nurses and making them aware of the benefi ts of each other’s respective age groups.


www.nursingtimes.net / Vol 108 No 36 / Nursing Times 04.09.12 3


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