The Member of the Welsh Parliament for Aberconwy – Janet Finch-Saunders MS – has met with officials from the Royal College of Nursing to underline her support for their campaign to expand safe and effective nursing care levels to cover mental health inpatient wards and community nursing.
Wales has enshrined in law the duty to have a minimum safe staffing level for nursing for medical and surgical inpatient wards in hospitals. Now, the RCN is calling for Section 25B of the Nurse Staffing (Wales) Act 2016 to cover more areas of healthcare, releasing a report that also recommends that the Welsh Government publish registered nurse vacancy data to improve workforce planning and develop a national NHS nursing retention strategy.
According to the RCN, staff shortages in Wales mean that nurses need to work 34,284 hours of overtime every week to care for patients. Research has shown that nurses working in areas of poor staffing are 71% more likely to experience high burnout and job dissatisfaction than nurses on more favourably staffed wards.
Commenting on her support for the campaign, Janet said:
“Staffing levels in NHS Wales are not where they need to be, leading to serious dangers to patient safety and collapsing staff morale. Having released a report with a number of constructive recommendations, I was most pleased to attend the RCN event to lend my support to their campaign.
“As well as speaking to officials about the concerning staffing situation in Aberconwy, and more broadly across North Wales, the event also allowed me to convey my sincere and wholehearted thanks to our NHS staff who continue to play an integral part in the national effort to combat coronavirus. We owe them a great deal of gratitude for all that they do.
“We know that there are around 3,000 staff vacancies across the entire NHS. Coming in tandem with year-on-year hospital bed cuts, these stark statistics underline the urgent need to expand minimum staffing legislation into mental health wards and review how we can better retain nursing staff.
“Further to this week’s event in the Senedd, I look forward to continuing my engagement with the RCN. Local residents can join me in supporting their aims by signing the petition and sharing it with the hashtag #ForTheFullTeam.”
RCN Wales estimates that the number of registered nurse vacancies in NHS Wales has risen to 1,719 in 2021 from 1,612 in 2020. The organisation says that it is difficult to ascertain the nurse vacancy rate in Wales due to inconsistencies in the data. For example, the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board data refers only to nursing and midwifery vacancies at Agenda for Change Band 5.
ENDS
Photo: Janet Finch-Saunders MS/AS at the RCN event.
