Responding to the latest NHS England Urgent and Emergency Care Daily Situation Report, Royal College of Nursing Director for England, Patricia Marquis, said:
“The NHS is already under incredible pressure even before the worst of winter begins to bite. Beds are full, a record number of patients are sitting on waiting lists, and thousands are stuck in hospital due to inadequate social care. This all points to a system in extremely poor health.
“With services struggling to cope with the pressures on the system, the stress inevitably lands on staff. On every shift, nursing staff are struggling to cope with the number of patients and to deliver the care they want to give. It is leaving them burnt out, demoralised and pushing many out of the profession.
“At the heart of this is a decade-long failure to invest in the nursing workforce. Just today we’ve seen UCAS figures showing nursing student numbers have fallen significantly and earlier this week the government introduced a cruel policy that will deter care workers from coming to the UK, inevitably piling more pressure on the NHS.
“If the UK government wants to help support the NHS this winter – it should start by giving nursing staff the pay rise they deserve, abandoning its new migration policies, and providing the investment the workforce plan needs to succeed.”
Ends
Notes to editors
According to the latest NHS England Urgent and Emergency Care Daily Situation Report, Adult General & Acute Bed Occupancy Rate for the week commencing 27th November 2023 was 95.4%, with the rate for week commencing 27th November 2022 also being 95.4%. Similarly, for the same weeks, the Adult Critical Bed Occupancy Rate was 80.1% in 2023, and 80.0% in 2022. For the week commencing 27th November 2023, the average number of patients fit to discharge remaining in hospital was 12,883, up slightly from 12,654 from the week commencing 20th November 2023, but down slightly from 13,336 the week commencing 27th November 2022.
