Following reports which state that 1,800 nurses quit the NHS within two months, hospitals may have no choice but to turn patients away.
Nurse shortage hits Britain as winter approaches
Britain’s total nursing staff dropped from 280,765 to 278,924 from June to August. The announcement has hospital staff and health care officials panicking as worries regarding the demands winter will place on hospitals rises.
Since David Cameron became PM in May 2010 the number has slumped by more than 1,200 from 6,399 to 5,154. Overall the number of senior nurses in the NHS has fallen by 3,373 from 66,832 in 2010 to 63,458 this year. Senior nurses are pivotal to patient safety and supervision of wards.
Nurses are crucial to hospitals as, if it were to e put simply, hospitals cannot run without them. The Royal College of Nursing blames the resignation of senior nursing staff as being due to their roles being curtailed to fit into a lower pay grade.
Many in the health sector claim that a combination of factors has led to the decrease in nurses, some of which include decreases in wages, increases in workloads and increased working-hours due to high demands for care.