Eltham nurse tells MP's that staffing cuts are putting lives at risk

Local nurse Shirley Ali, and nursing colleagues from across London and England descended on Parliament this week (July 16) to demand MPs end the staffing crisis.

At the Royal College of Nursing event in Westminster, nursing staff and students from London met MPs and peers from all parties to discuss their experiences on the frontline of a health service in the grip of its worst ever nursing workforce shortage.

At the event, Shirley Ali, a Senior Anaesthetic Nurse, met with Eltham MP Clive Efford and urged him to back the RCN’s campaign for new legislation to make Government and NHS bosses explicitly accountable for safely staffing health and care services in London and throughout England.

At present there is no clear legal responsibility for ensuring there are enough nurses.

One in ten nursing positions in the NHS in England alone are unfilled, leaving a shortfall of around 40,000 nurses, including 9,333 in London.

Shirley Ali, a Senior Anaesthetic Nurse from Eltham, said: “This was a fantastic opportunity for nurses to tell MPs about the pressures they experience every day because there aren’t enough nursing staff.

“I love my job and go into work every day to provide the best care I can for patients, but the truth is that we are more stretched than ever. We need more staff and more investment in the profession – that would make it so much easier for us to deliver the standard of care we all went in to nursing to do.”

RCN members spoke of their desperation trying to provide safe care without enough nursing staff, and called on MPs to back the RCN’s campaign for new legislation to make Government and NHS bosses explicitly accountable for safely staffing health and care services in London and throughout England.

At present there is no clear legal responsibility for ensuring there are enough nurses.

RCN London Regional Director Jude Diggins, said: “Health and social care services across the capital have only survived this long thanks to the goodwill of nurses who routinely work many hours of unpaid overtime to cover for the almost 10,000 empty nursing posts in London - this puts nurses under impossible strain and means patients are being put at risk.

“Though the public might find it hard to believe, there is no way to hold Ministers and other leaders, legally responsible for ensuring that there are enough nurses – we are clear that this has to change if the nursing workforce crisis is to be addressed.

The RCN is also campaigning for investment of at least £1 billion a year in nurse education, to attract and retain a new generation of nurses and make nursing a viable career option for people from all backgrounds.