Nurses on cleaning duty: a waste of skills or part of the job?
Posted 24 August 2022 - 01:00
Luton and Dunstable University Hospital wrote to nurses asking them to fill ward staffing gaps or to take on cleaning the sluices
If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.
As accomplished multitaskers, nurses embody the sentiment of US statesman Benjamin Franklin’s famous saying. But with rising levels of burnout and decreasing pay amid record inflation, the scope and value of nursing is under the spotlight.
Debate over acceptability of cleaning request
A suggestion by Luton and Dunstable University Hospital that specialist nurses take on cleaning duties to mitigate staffing shortages has caused a stir on social media.
Some nurses have labelled it ‘disrespectful’, while others pointed out that they already keep wards clean and tidy as part of their job.
However, there is a difference between maintaining cleanliness for infection prevention and control, and being shifted from monitoring and managing patients’ long-term conditions to undertaking domestic duties.
Nurses are spread thinly enough and often struggle to complete their clinical task list and associated administration.
RCN to ballot members on potential strike action
Meanwhile, the RCN is balloting its members over potential strike action, following a pitiful pay offer from government that fails to reflect the responsibilities and skills of the nursing profession.
The need to recruit and retain sufficient nurses is also a key driver in the fight for fair pay, and it’s no surprise that short staffing is the underlying reason for Luton and Dunstable’s request to specialist nurses.
It wants specialist nurses to be released to a ward for a whole shift to be counted in its staffing numbers and ensure continuity of care. But it adds if they can’t work a whole shift, these nurses could be asked to take on tasks such as cleaning the sluice and high-touch points, or decluttering. No nurses have yet taken this on, the trust reports.
Short staffing must be called out at every opportunity, just as we must highlight the complexity and breadth of nursing – and how overworked and underpaid nurses are. In some ways this cleaning debate has done that.
Employers must recognise and value this highly trained specialist workforce, not let their skills be swept under the carpet.
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