900 nurses resign amid nursing crisis
The Director of the Royal College of Nursing in Northern Ireland has revealed 900 Northern Ireland nurses left the profession last year.
Last updated 16th Jan 2018
Janice Smyth disclosed the figures to Downtown Cool FM after emergency departments struggled to cope with crisis levels of patients recently.
"We know that last year, 900 nurses from Northern Ireland left the profession, they took their name off the nursing and midwifery register.
"And we know that in the first two quarters of this year, another 500 have gone," she said.
The number of people attending Accident and Emergency departments across the province over the Christmas and New Year period rose to 4%.
The problem is compounded by high levels of staff shortages.
She warned the health service cannot continue in its current form:
"We don't have enough nurses, we have too many patients, we have no services in the community," Mrs Smyth said.
"Why when we know that our population is growing and we know every year the attendances at our Emergency Departments are going up and then we get surprised this year when it's up 4%?
"It's not a surprise, there is a raft of planners working on our system who know exactly the needs of the population," she added.
According to the Royal College of Nursing, poor workplace conditions was the biggest factor driving nurses out of the profession.
"The Nursing and Midwifery Council did a survey and asked nurses why they were leaving the register and they asked nurses who gave a reason other than retirement," Mrs Smyth added
"40 odd percent of them said it was the workplace conditions and their inability to provide the care that they knew they needed to provide for their patients.
"The big thing that's driving nurses out of the profession is not pay although it's a significant challenge, it's the pressure of seeing human beings requiring nursing care and they, despite working unpaid hours and lots of them, can't deliver it," she added.
In November last year, nurses were promised a 1% salary increase after a long running pay dispute.
But Mrs Smyth says wages are only a small contributory factor:
"Nurses feel very let down... they were being told conflicting stories," she told us.
"So the Department would say that they couldn't make a pay award in the absence of a Minister and the local politicians were telling our members that that wasn't right, that that pay award could be made.
"The Department of Health clarified that for the college and said it couldn't be made and then in November, there was a press release put out to say that nurses were going to get their 1% pay rise.
"Now the Department will say they didn't get the money for the pay rise until November but that's not the issue, the issue was that nurses were told 'it can't be paid,' and now it is paid.
"And that doesn't do much for their faith in the system understanding their dilemma and that 1% pay rise for 50 odd percent of the nursing workforce is about £5 a week."
Mrs Smyth also revealed the extent of the staffing shortages in Northern Ireland:
"There are 1500 registered nurse vacancies short and within the nursing home sector there's probably, at least that.
"So we're looking at, probably needing about 3000 nurses."
The organisation has called for crunch talks to implement a contingency plan or emergency measures to deal with the current crisis.
"If we don't transform the services that we've got it will not be able to continue the way it is for another year.
"It absolutely will not and we have made that very clear to people.
"Now there's not too many people that will say it that bluntly but if you go and ask any nurse that is working in our services, that's what they'll tell you."
Health was one of the sectors subject to austerity measures in recent years, Mrs Smyth says it has left the system at breaking point:
"In terms of the nursing workforce, the situation that we're in now has been created it didn't just happen and it was through those short-term cost saving measures.
"And I'm not sure we have saved any money.
"Never mind the cost to the patients of care left undone.
"Three of four years ago there was £12 million in the post registration nursing budget and for a registered nurse workforce of between 15000 and 16000 people, that's not a lot of money.
"Now there is somewhere between eight and a half and nine million in it.
"What would it take?
"It would probably take £18 million but we have just not got enough resources in that budget to do what we need to do."