NHS London considers nursing cuts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/03/nhs-london-considers-nursing-cuts

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NHS London, the body that overseas the health service in the capital, has identified potential savings of hundreds of millions of pounds through cuts to hospital nursing budgets.

Documents obtained by Nursing Times magazine show NHS London suggesting hospitals could slice deeply into frontline staff budgets to align "staffing levels with clinical need".

The documents suggest cuts including £7m at North Middlesex University Hospital Trust and £54m at Imperial College Healthcare Trust, savings of less than a third of their nursing budgets.

Newham University Hospital Trust and the Whittington Hospital Trust could make more than £20m in cuts, representing a 50% reduction, the documents claim. The finances of 18 hospital trusts were analysed.

Unions warned that the level of cuts proposed "takes you into core safety territory". The Royal College of Nursing said reducing nursing numbers would see an increase in the number of patient "trips and falls" and lead to problems with medication not being administered.

Howard Catton, head of policy at the RCN, said: "There's good evidence that mortality rates go up as there is a failure to spot patients in trouble and rescue them."

He pointed out that last month a study by the National Nursing Research Unit at King's College London and the University of Southampton showed that the levels of burnout and job dissatisfaction among English nurses were among the worst in Europe.

NHS hospital trusts are having to make significant savings in the runup to April 2014, the date by which they must become financially independent foundation trusts. This has led to many hospitals looking to save cash in the short-term.

The NHS London report claimed there was no clear evidence that increasing the number of nurses would improve the quality of nursing care.

It stated: "Other factors, such as ways of working, may be more important than resourcing levels and, whilst some individual clinical areas will undoubtedly require more resource (including increasing the numbers working in those areas), efficiency improvements will enable others to deliver improved quality with fewer staff."

NHS London said in a statement that the report used "three different sets of figures to calculate potential savings for each trust and all represent theoretical productivity improvements, not a plan to implement changes. The set of figures used in the model are based on a trust performing optimally at every possible area including nursing. No trust has been asked to achieve these reductions."