UNISON members tell Newsnight Scotland about workload pressures on nurses and midwives

25 April 2013 #JoinUNISON

UNISON health workers spoke out on Newsnight Scotland last night about the pressures on overworked staff.

Nurse Cathy Miller and community midwife Catherine Lewis described day to day stresses of the job for staff expected to do more and more in the same hours.

Cathy said that paperwork and bureaucracy has increased to such an extent that members report struggling "between direct patient care and paperwork care".

Catherine explained that growing workloads causes real strains as staff, even after prioritising the care they provide, may have to work through breaks, have no breaks, work beyond their shift, with consequent effects on their personal life - all "to deliver the level of care we want to deliver", because staff have a conscience and want to do the job properly.

The whole interview is on BBC iPlayer, about 2 mins 10 seconds in.

Matt McLaughlin, UNISON Scotland's lead organiser for nursing, said today that our survey published last week (report in the Herald) showed that members "across Scotland and the rest of the UK feel they are regularly short staffed.

"This leads to people not taking breaks, working on extra and people feeling they don't have time to provide the added quality in their care that is in fact an essential part of the job.

"This is why we have called for minimum staffing levels. We see that as a reasonable and safe way to provide care for patients across the UK."








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UNISON warning on staffing levels and financial pressures on health boards

3 April 2013

UNISON warned last night that the NHS in Scotland cannot be complacent about avoiding the terrible failings at Mid Staffordshire in England.

Newsnight Scotland reported on the launch yesterday of a pilot ‘whistleblowers’ phoneline for health service workers.

The National Confidential Alert Line for NHS staff ( 0800 008 6112 ) is being piloted for a year.

Examining a range of incidents in Scottish hospitals, Newsnight also referred to the failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, described as “appalling” by the Francis Inquiry, and asked whether it could be repeated here.

Matt McLaughlin, UNISON Scotland’s lead officer for nursing, said that Mid Staffordshire was clearly a very complex situation and that it is wrong to make direct comparisons with Scotland’s different health system

However, he added: “The fundamental problem for us in Scotland, I think, relates to staffing levels and to the constant pressure that health boards are under to save money, to stretch pounds further than they currently do.

“And that was a fundamental problem in Mid Staffordshire.

“Could it happen in Scotland? Yes, it could.”

 

See the whole report on BBC iPlayer here

Matt’s interview starts at about 4 minutes into the programme.

 

(See also Matt's article on the challenges facing nursing in the April edition of the Socialist Health Association Scotland journal, Healthier Scotland, p15. It is also posted on this blog.

 

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