Safety fears as nurses leave A&E posts

Speaking in her role as chair of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN)’s emergency care association, Janet Youd, an A&E nurse in Calderdale and Huddersfield, who previously worked in Leeds, said she couldn’t guarantee patients would get safe care in an emergency department.

She said: “I have been an emergency care nurse for 25 years, and the news is that the attrition rate of emergency nurses leaving emergency departments is at a level it has never ever been before.

“Many emergency departments are struggling but managing to fill their shifts with expensive agency shifts, but they are not necessarily emergency nurses.

“That means that if you or I have an emergency today... you could go to an emergency department and it would be sheer luck that you had an emergency nurse there with the right skills and the right training to treat you.

“Previously we have talked about how horrific it is to nurse patients in corridors, how horrific it is that patients wait hours and hours in emergency departments, but those patients got the care they needed predominantly because emergency nurses were there. This year I have seen more nurses leave emergency care than ever before, so I can’t hand on heart say that you will get safe care in an emergency department.”

Her comments came as the RCN, which is holding its annual congress in Glasgow, said mounting pressures on hospitals are leading to patients being treated in storerooms, frail and elderly patients being moved around in the middle of the night and ambulances queuing outside A&Es.

Major incidents in hospitals that are usually only seen through the busy winter months but are now becoming a problem “all year round”, and that across England, the hospital sector is feeling the strain of financial pressures and increased demand.

It highlighted a series of issues which are “adding to the chaos” including hospitals running with no spare capacity and patients being moved at night due to intense pressure on beds.

Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN said: “Having once been the preserve of the worst weeks of winter, overwhelming pressure and major incidents have sadly become the new normal in our hospitals. Units are having to be closed and operations cancelled due to the level of demand when there is no extreme weather, and no major outbreaks of infectious diseases.

“Sadly, this is a problem which perpetuates itself, with patients getting sicker and needing more care, then having to stay longer in hospital. It is time we had a serious look at how long hospitals can continue to function when they are consistently under-funded and under-staffed.”