Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHS
Paul Ayrton
Recent activity
Comments (12)
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Comment on: Study heralds success of payment by results
So, once again we're told nationally that we CAN do more and more with less and less. Come on, NT - get your mix of articles right. Or is it once more a case of 'you can prove anything with research'? What about the link (on this page!) to the article of 31st March, indeed all the preceding articles suggesting the profession's going to be floundering with "soaring vacancies". Somebody somewhere evidently hasn't got a clue, or is seriously out of touch with reality. My money's on the latter, and the 'somebody' in question is HM Government (perhaps 'government' is now a misnomer).
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Comment on: NHS could cut 6,500 nurse jobs as recession bites
This news flies directly in the face of the previous edition's "compassion in nursing" article. When I did my training and for a good many of my years as a staff nurse, this was all just part of the job, and it was soul-destroying to watch values shift due to the consumer-driven implementation of "targets". I'm ashamed of my nursing background, and now advise anyone thinking of joining the profession to think twice. Then reconsider. Then think even longer. Then forget it, because there won't be a job for them after qualification.
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Comment on: Compassion key to nursing, RCN tells PM's commission
"Hear, hear!" to Mark & Chris, although there's an implicit sad indictment on the lack of this simple human quality within the profession. The RCN's recommendations talk a good talk, but without some hint or vague promise about the "how" of these they're pretty pointless. I'd take some issue with Ms Davies' assertion of patient 'savvy' - it's not a straight lead from there to actually taking responsibility for one's own maintenance of health, e.g. actually implementing the lifestyle changes where it's advisable. As long as people have the inalienable right to actively foist their ill-health and associated problems onto an overburdened system this will not get us any further forward. 'Compassion fatigue' is a recognised phenomenon, & maybe this is why.
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Comment on: New tool to reveal nursing quality
This is nothing new; many years ago this tool existed under the epithet 'Dependency Score Analysis Tool'. It had the same rationale - i.e. matching caseload to skillmix and helping to identify required establishment levels, and in this it was seen to fail spectacularly. One hopes that in year to come the success of the "Productive Ward" initiative will lead to the time saved for patient care being used to complete yet another form. I'm reminded of a satirical cartoon from a 1980s edition of the Nursing Mirror linked to an eerily accurate article about nurses being gradually steered away from their point of focus, their 'raison d'etre' in favour of the computer and clipboard. Bring back the '70s, when all this assessment and care was simply "part of the job....."
