NHS winter pressures: why aren’t more nurses at the meeting table?
Posted 13 September 2023 - 15:00
Roundtable meeting has one nurse representative, prompting criticism that the meeting is ‘short-sighted’ for excluding multiple views from nursing profession
The government is being criticised for inadequate levels of nursing representation at a meeting to prepare the NHS for winter pressures.
Health and social care secretary Steve Barclay is hosting a roundtable discussion today with prime minister Rishi Sunak and NHS leaders to look at ways to mitigate winter pressures, improve care for patients and increase access to urgent and emergency care.
Attendees include NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard and chief nursing officer for England Ruth May, alongside chairs of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Royal College of General Practitioners and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and representatives of community health services in England.
‘Why are nursing voices continually excluded?’
While nurses are represented by Ms May, it is understood the RCN was not among the royal colleges invited to the talks. Other health unions, including the British Medical Association, were also absent from the government’s list of attendees.
London South Bank University chair of healthcare and workforce modelling Alison Leary told Nursing Standard: ‘The repeated exclusion of the professional views of nursing is short-sighted.
‘Registered nurses and nursing support workers bring real world intelligence and insight into many of the challenges the NHS is facing. They bring strategic and evidence-informed views along with possible solutions. We have to ask why nursing voices are continually excluded.’
Plan for more beds, but who will staff them?
It is not the first time nurses have been under-represented at top-level meetings between the government and health leaders. Nurses were notably absent from an emergency meeting on tackling NHS pressures in January.
Mitigations for winter already in place include a £250 million drive to deliver 900 additional hospital beds as part of a wider plan to put in place 5,000 permanent additional beds to increase capacity. But with the NHS struggling with recruitment and retention, there are questions over how those beds will be staffed.
Nursing lecturer and former emergency department nurse Matthew Osborne tweeted to say winter pressures needed to be better planned for with ‘year-round resilience’ in the NHS.
Investing in the nursing workforce is vital to protect NHS, says union
RCN director of nursing Nicola Ranger said nurses face the reality of winter pressures all year round.
‘We need to have a long-term conversation about how we protect the NHS whatever the time of year so we do not need to reach this point every winter. Investing in the nursing workforce must be at the heart of this.’
The Department of Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.
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