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NURSES require a ‘double-digit’ pay rise!
This was the message of the leader of the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) Pat Cullen yesterday, ahead of the union’s Annual Congress which begins in Brighton today.
Cullen praised her ‘courageous’ members and the nursing union will now ballot for further strike action later this month.
Cullen said she was ‘proud’ of RCN members and praised their ‘selflessness’ for rejecting the government’s pay offer and losing pay on strike days to ‘stand up for the NHS’.
‘Nurses believe it’s their duty and their responsibility because this government is not listening to them on how to bring it back from the brink and the message to the Prime Minister is that they are absolutely not going to blink first in these negotiations,’ she added.
The treatment of patients in inappropriate areas such as corridors and waiting rooms is increasingly common and compromises patient safety and dignity, emergency nurses have told the Royal College of Nursing.
Over five hundred specialist A&E nurses in the RCN’s Emergency Care Association shared their experiences of overcrowded hospitals ahead of the College’s annual Congress.
The full conference will discuss the impact of ‘corridor care’ and the ‘moral injury and distress for nursing staff, knowing that they are providing sub-optimal care to patients’.
In her keynote address today, Pat Cullen will say ‘health and care systems around the UK are sailing dangerously close to the wind.’
The survey of emergency care nurses reveals more than eight-in-10 say treatment in non-designated clinical areas, including store rooms, has increased since the beginning of last year.
Over nine-in-10 raised concerns that patients may be receiving unsafe care and patient dignity, privacy and confidentiality is compromised. More than six-in-10 added that the situation leads to fears of being struck off the nursing register or a court case as a result of patient harm.
Corridor care has become more common due to increased demand on hospitals because of a lack of GP appointments.
Hospitals are also unable to discharge patients because of a lack of community care provision.
Bed capacity runs at dangerous levels and patients in emergency departments cannot be moved to wards.
As a result, emergency care staff provide care in inappropriate settings to cope with high numbers of patients.
RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, Pat Cullen, said: ‘This bleak picture comes from right across the NHS. Patients backed-up through emergency departments is a stark sign of a health and care system grinding to a halt. A corridor is no place to die and no place to work either.
‘When ministers fail to grip this situation, they allow patients to pay a high price and nursing staff to work in fear, professionally compromised. Governments must urgently plan and invest to reverse this new trend.
‘Our members have told us they’re so concerned about patient safety being compromised that they are fearing court cases against them.
‘While any decision around a court case would take into context the particular pressures that a nurse is working within, these fears are evidence of just how unsafe conditions have become. It’s shocking that many nurses don’t feel comfortable about raising concerns, despite everything we’ve learnt from the Francis report a decade ago.’
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