RCN Scotland calls for investment in community nursing ahead of budget

RCN Scotland has urged the Scottish Government to use this week’s pre-election budget to deliver on commitments to the nursing workforce in the community, warning that ambitions to reform health and care services will fail without proper investment.

Almost a year since Scotland’s Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce published recommendations on workforce retention and wellbeing, the college says there has been little progress on implementation and no identified funding to deliver them.

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Finance secretary Shona Robison will reveal the SNP administration’s financial plans on Tuesday 13 January, four months before the Scottish public go to the polls for the Holyrood election.

Ahead of the budget, Colin Poolman, RCN Scotland director, said nursing was often seen as ‘a cost rather than the investment it truly is’.

He warned that without action, momentum risks being lost, adding: ‘We cannot afford to miss this opportunity to make real improvements and deliver the sustainable nursing workforce that Scotland so badly needs.’

Mr Poolman called for targeted investment in registered nurses working in community and social care.

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‘Delivering nursing care in the community is key for tackling delayed discharges, bringing care closer to the individual and reducing the pressure on acute hospitals,’ he said.

‘Without it, the longstanding ambition to move care into the community – a key aspect of the Scottish Government’s Service Renewal Framework – will not be realised.’

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Last week, an influential committee of MPs set out in a letter to health minister Karin Smyth that plans to shift NHS care out of hospitals into neighbourhoods could fail unless action is taken to strengthen district nursing and other community-based roles.

The letter from the Health and Social Care Committee warned that lower pay, heavy workloads and a lack of training and supervision was driving district nurses away from community roles and undermining the government’s ambition to move more care closer to home.