'Leaders do little to prepare for the impact of winter pressures'
The Commons’ health select committee released a major report on the nursing workforce on Friday, advising leaders that they needed to recruit nurses “at scale and pace”.
But that could not possibly be enough pace for the trusts currently struggling with winter pressures.
On Monday, we reported that Hull and East Yorkshire Hospital Trust was redeploying specialist nurses to accident and emergency and using administrative staff to act as runners and support its clinical staff in the wards. This move is intended to help the trust cope with “unprecedented demand” in emergency admissions this month.
It is surprising how much unprecedented demand there is around this winter. It is turning into something of an epidemic, spreading throughout every NHS trust we come into contact with. I only wish we had a vaccine for it.