The expertise of the 4,000 nurses working at NHS England and in integrated care boards (ICBs) must be retained amid the reforms and cuts taking place, a nursing leader has urged.
Professor Nicola Ranger also raised concerns about frontline nursing posts being lost due to pressures on providers to save money and about student nurse graduates being unable to find jobs.
“I know posts are being [looked] at to take frontline nursing out”
Nicola Ranger
Professor Ranger, the chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), made the comments as part of her evidence today to the Health and Social Care Committee.
The committee, which scrutinises government health policy and is made up of a cross-party group of MPs, brought in Professor Ranger and other senior figures to share their views on the upcoming abolition of NHS England and wider health service reform programme.
Opening the session, committee chair Layla Moran said the session would focus on the potential impact of the government’s plan to cut 50% of centralised NHS staff and 50% of ICB running costs.
RCN chief Professor Ranger appeared as part of a panel of three leaders representing the health workforce.
She noted that thousands of nurses worked in NHS England and ICBs and therefore would be directly impacted by the cuts.
“At the moment, the Royal College of Nursing represents nearly 4,000 nurses and nursing teams that work in NHS England and ICBs,” Professor Ranger told the committee.
“They’re not bureaucrats. They are clinical nurses who run all sorts of brilliant services for patients: safeguarding, infection control, nurse leadership.
“So, what we would say is… every nurse at the moment counts in the UK, we don’t want to lose that expertise.”
Meanwhile, Professor Ranger said providers were also being expected to make savings and this would affect frontline nurses working in trusts.
She suggested that providers were considering cutting nursing posts to meet these savings demands.
“Every nurse at the moment counts in the UK, we don’t want to lose that expertise”
Nicola Ranger
“At this moment in time, it isn’t just NHS England and ICBs being asked to make savings,” she said.
“It’s coming to providers as well. And I know posts are being [looked] at to take frontline nursing out.”
The cuts also mean that student nurses who are graduating this year are worried about being able to find jobs, warned Professor Ranger, who called this situation a “disgrace”.
She said she wanted to see the reorganisation of the NHS work to restore “faith” in the health service among both nurses and patients and address recruitment and retention challenges facing nursing.
“People are looking for more private healthcare than they ever have. Staff are a little bit fed up and demoralised,” said Professor Ranger.
“The best thing this reorganisation could do is start to improve on some metrics, even if it isn’t everything.
“Because what people are starting to do is lose a little bit of faith in the NHS, both the staff and the patients, and that will be a disaster.
“So, whatever is decided centrally and with clinicians and providers, what needs to get better, let’s get it better. Because at the moment, almost everything is struggling.”
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