Policy, politics and nursing : Assignment
Added on 2021-04-21
19 Pages5187 Words122 Views
1Policy and Politics in Nursing, a Review of Safe StaffingName:Institution:
2Introduction Stories of inadequate staffing within NHS have been on the daily headlines for a while now.Coupled with reports of fewer European Union-based nurses registering with the NMC, caseshave been reported of nurses leaving the NHS. Similarly, industry commentaries have raisedalarm over a significant drop in students applying for nursing courses despite an increasing rateof nursing vacancies in the English health sector. Could Britain drifting towards a staffing crisis?In 2008, an inquiry was launched into the Stafford Hospital upon an alert by the HealthcareCommission over high mortality rate of emergency patients in the hospital. In what was like ashocking revelation in the history of Britain’s healthcare sector, the inquiry report suggested thatthe hospital was languishing in deep inadequacies and appalling conditions which might havecontributed to the death of between 400 and 1200 patients in the period of 2005 to 2008 (FrancisReport 2013). While the Stafford hospital report was criticized for fully attributing the deaths tothe hospital’s inadequacies, details of this report have still remained an object of reference intoday’s conversations about NHS’s failure in offering quality healthcare to the public. The aim of this essay is to investigate and critically analyse current issues related to the field ofnursing. Majorly, the essay will dwell on health policy and politics, with a specific focus on safestaffing levels of nurses and how it impacts on patient care. In doing so, the first part of the essaywill be a criticism of the staffing situation at NHS, highlighting the issues that have emerged
3with regards to staffing while drawing attention to several health-based reports such as theFrancis report, and making reference to various UK organizations such as the Royal College ofNursing and the UNISON. This will be aimed at identifying the acceptable staffing standards andcomparing them with the current staffing situation at NHS. The second part of the essay willhighlight health policy on staffing, giving attention to the problem at hand (understaffing) and itsimpact on service delivery to the UK citizens. On the same note, there will be a highlight on thegovernment’s response to the staffing situation at hand, explaining how different actors haveinfluenced the process of policy formulation and the various factors that are considered duringthe development of policy. Next, the essay will identify the impact of health staffing policy onthe level of service delivery within the NHS. Ultimately, the essay will identify whether thepolicy implementation process has improved health outcomes or not. Problem Identification An assertion that the NHS is at a crisis is not new to the UK citizens. Emanating from historicalevents such as the Winterbourne View scandal, news headlines have reported inadequate qualitycare characterized by the mass violation of ethical standards in nursing practice. In fact,according to Stone (2017), the events at Winterbourne wholesomely violated the principles ofmedical ethics as proposed by Beauchamp and Childress in 2013. For instance, patients wereforced to sleep outside in the cold, a violation of the ethical principle of autonomy – which statesthat patients are supposed to make their individual choices. Similarly, the Winterbourne case wascharacterized by the harsh handling of patients by staff, a violation of the beneficence principlewhich requires that staff must act in the best interest of the patients (NMC 2015). Following the
4events at the Winterbourne, there was a general notion that similar occurrences could bereplicating in other Hospitals within the NHS. This triggered the CQC to launch an investigation(Serious Case Review) which revealed massive shortfalls within the NHS. Key to the findingswas that patients in most hospitals offered poor quality services, a serious deficit of nurses, abuseof power by health facility managers and massive financial deficits (RNC 2010). No doubt, theseevents have left an indelible mark of disappointment in the hearts of the families and friends ofthe victims involved. Taking the perspective of the Francis Report (2013), there were serious shortfalls in the NHS thataffected the general service delivery to the patients. For instance, the report revealed that therewere serious staffing deficits in the whole of English healthcare sector which contributed tolonger hours of patients waiting to be served as well as a poor level of service because of only afew nurses available to serve patients at a time. However, with the reported reduction in theEnglish nursing workforce, it is not surprising that the report attributed the poor quality ofhealthcare to poor staffing. The Francis inquiry seems not to be the only one that identifies the dire need for adequatenursing within the NHS. While the Royal College of Nursing has been quite explicit about therecommended number of nurses for delivery of cost-effective quality care to patients, a researchthey conducted in 2009 revealed that in Scotland, only one out of ten nurses believed thatstaffing levels are always adequate (RCN 2010). Similarly, the according to (RCN 2010), 27% ofnurses in Scotland believed that the staffing levels were not ideal for proper nursing care. On the
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