There are too few nursing staff in hospitals to protect patients from harm, the union Unison has warned.
Unison has today revealed that nurses and other clinical health workers believe there are insufficient staff on shift to deliver safe care on 69% of shifts, according to surveys carried out by the union.
This is a rise from the 63% recorded when the research was previously carried out in 2023.
The findings are based on over 1,400 shifts completed at over 40 hospital sites by clinical staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The majority of the clinical staff who completed the surveys were nurses and healthcare assistants, although allied health professionals and registered midwives were also among the respondents.
Related Article: Fewer patients access social care due to staffing costs, says report
Unison currently represents over 400,000 health workers across the NHS and private sector.
Where is safety most at risk?
The survey found that a ‘red flag’ event – representing a serious risk to safety – took place on over half (56%) of all shifts.
These ‘events’ were more common during shifts that were seen to be understaffed (67%), compared to those that were judged to have sufficient staffing levels (16%).
The staff surveyed reported the largest proportion of safety concerns after shifts on maternity wards (81%), in rehabilitation units helping people to recover from injury, illness or disability (81%) and those looking after older people (82%).
During ‘unsafely staffed’ shifts, 66% of respondents said meeting patient’s personal needs like avoiding falls or scheduling bathroom visits were either delayed or not performed.
Where shifts were safely staffed, these tasks are delayed or not performed 16% of the time, Unison said.
In over half of ‘unsafely staffed’ shifts (54%), staff reported a delay of more than 30-minutes in providing pain relief, compared with 12% where enough staff were present.
A third of staff also reported that patient vital signs were not assessed or recorded, as required in their care plan, when staffing was insufficient. This contrasts with 6% saying this was missed where staffing was sufficient.
Related Article: ‘Urgent’ community nursing investment needed to fix corridor care crisis
The growing threat of staffing gaps
Around three in five (64%) of workers surveyed said they reported staffing gaps to their employers, a fall from 71% in 2023.
Among those that raised staffing concerns, only one in five (21%) said they were given a satisfactory response from their employer on how to resolve the staffing issue and deliver safe patient care. This was down from a quarter (25%) in 2023.
For staff who did not report concerns, over half (54%) said they did not feel confident their employer would act, so they said nothing.
Unison national nursing officer Stuart Tuckwood said the figures showed how staffing levels across the NHS ‘are alarmingly low on a regular basis’.
‘Nursing staff are often unable to provide vital care or administer pain relief to their patients on time,’ he explained.
Related Article: NHS delays not caused by lack of social care capacity, says Care England
‘These figures should be a wake-up call for health service leaders given the state of NHS finances and talk of cuts. Urgent investment is needed in hospital staffing to ensure patients are kept safe.’
Yesterday, the Liberal Democrat Party launched calls for NHS ‘super heads’ to go into ‘failing trusts’ to improve conditions, following new freedom of information (FOI) data which found a 71-fold increase in trolley waits of 24 hours or longer in UK hospitals since 2019.
