WORK FORCE I S SUE S
Supporting nurses to deliver high-quality care
The Courage of Compassion: Supporting Nurses and Midwives to Deliver High-quality Care, a King’s Fund report, provides an emotive insight into current working conditions and the impact on staff wellbeing. Kate Woodhead RGN DMS reflects on toxic work cultures, the stress placed on nurses during the pandemic, and the report’s key recommendations for supporting and empowering the workforce.
The King’s Fund was recently commissioned by the RCN Foundation to provide insights into: the changes that are required in nurses’ and midwives’ workplaces, ways of working to enable them to flourish at work, and how to provide appropriate support mechanisms, so that they are able to provide high quality care in a sustainable way. The report1
for sad and difficult reading and should be read by every nurse and midwifery manager, as well as senior managers and clinical leaders. It is hoped that this report will be the catalyst for a raft of changes, the NHS will be a better employer for the attention, and there will be changes to the means of support it provides. This article seeks to explore the key factors and report on the main elements of impact on the wellbeing of nurses and midwives, both before and after COVID-19. The scope of the report includes all grades of nurses and midwives including students and healthcare assistants and associates. It spans all four home nations and all care settings including social care, primary care and mental health, as well as acute care. Data was included from a literature review and three focus groups, as well as a series of 47 semi-structured interviews. This is a comprehensive report ensuring that the review team heard from a wide range of practitioners from a diverse range of perspectives. It is aimed at all those who can influence the work lives of nurses and midwives, including organisational and national nursing and midwifery leaders, workforce and professional development personnel, operational managers, national bodies, ministers and governments. There are many recommendations and changes suggested to enable organisations to tackle the underlying causes of stress, ill
NOVEMBER 2020
makes
health and poor wellbeing – such as chronic excessive workload, bullying, inadequate supervision, discrimination and poor team working. Nurses’ and midwives’ work should be fulfilling and life enhancing, despite the challenging roles which they have. Research has clearly shown that positive staff
More than a third of nurses working in England are considering leaving according to a Royal College of Nursing survey in May 2020.
wellbeing significantly improves care quality and safety, patient safety, patient satisfaction, productivity, financial performance and the sustainability of health and care services.2,3 Poor workplace environments have damaging effects on both the mental and physical health of nurses and midwives and on the quality and services they provide.
Mental health and wellbeing Staff shortages: Even before the COVID- 19 crisis there were 100,000 staff vacancies in NHS in England, representing 1 in 11 of all posts. Nursing presents one of the greatest challenges with an estimated 43,590 vacancies as reported by the National Audit Office in March 2020.4
in some specialist
fields there are startling data showing a 35% reduction in health visitors with one report citing that each health visitor has a caseload of up to 750 children and their
WWW.CLINICALSERVICESJOURNAL.COM l 15
▲
©insta_photos -
stock.adobe.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
