UK cancer and children’s wards being hit by closures
https://www.theguardian.com/society...rds-being-hit-by-closures-nhs-staffing-crisis
Growing numbers of hospital units that provide cancer care and children’s services are among those being forced to shut because the NHS’s deepening staffing crisis means it has too few doctors and nurses to operate them safely.
The closures are leading to patients having to travel further to receive care as NHS bosses increasingly decide to centralise services in fewer hospitals in response to gaps in rotas.
The trend prompted the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to warn that “skeleton staffing” means patients are suffering.
“Every day brings fresh and devastating examples of patients paying the highest price for staffing shortage. There are no benefits to running the NHS on a skeleton staff and refusing to acknowledge that means the ultimate losers, as ward closures around England show, are patients,” said Dame Donna Kinnair, the RCN’s acting chief executive.
Units providing cancer care, services to children and rehabilitation to older patients are among those affected by an ongoing trend which critics say is slimming-down by stealth of NHS care.
Kinnair said: “Staffing shortages push nursing staff to the limit, forcing them to deal with intolerable pressure and escalating workloads. Wards across the country find themselves in a position where even one or two registered nurses leaving or retiring means there’s no conceivable way to operate safely, and the remaining workforce are uprooted to plug gaps in rotas elsewhere.”
The BMA has warned that Brexit will make NHS understaffing even worse if fewer doctors from the EU27 countries decide to come and work in Britain.
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How will we make up for the Brexit-driven collapse in European nurses working for the NHS? You guessed it! By scrapping the student nurse bursary and working them into the ground while paying at least £10k/annum less than any other developed English-speaking country!
Starting nurse's salaries by country:
Britain - £22k
Canada - £35k ($58k CAD)
Australia - £37k ($65k AUD)
USA - £52k ($67k USD)
^^Thanks Tories! ^^Thanks Brexiteers! Take a bow, lads.