Responding to the latest NHS England winter performance data RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger said:
“Nursing staff have never been more worried for patient safety. As flu cases soar, sick and vulnerable people are lining corridors, whlist many hospitals are declaring critical incidents. This is the brutal reality in an NHS which has too few beds, not enough staff and nowhere to discharge patients to.
“The tragedy is this situation is not new, with these unacceptable conditions now seen all year round. Nursing staff have repeatedly called for investment in social care and community services to ease the pressure on hospitals, but successive governments ignored them. Today’s scenes on wards are a consequence of that ignorance.
“To end the crisis in our hospitals, this government has to first come clean on how many patients are being treated in these appalling conditions and introduce mandatory reporting. We also need urgent investment in the nursing workforce which is battling under the strain of over 30,000 vacancies.”
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Notes to editors
The number of people in hospital with flu in England is continuing to increase and is nearly five times the level it was at the start of December, NHS figures show.
An average of 5,408 flu patients were in beds in England each day last week, including 256 in critical care.
This is up 21% from 4,469 the previous week, when 211 were in critical care.
It is also nearly five times the number on December 1, when the total stood at 1,098.
