Nurses 'too busy' for proper care

The majority of nurses thought there were not enough staff

More than half of nurses working in Scotland are "too busy" to provide patients with the standard of care they would like to, a union has claimed.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said its study also found 51% of nurses thought there were not enough staff to meet patients' needs.

While 44% of those who responded thought patient care was compromised "at least once a week".

A total of 1,400 nurses across Scotland were questioned in the RCN survey.

The study found that 52% of nurses said they were unable to give patients as much care as they would like to because of the demands on their time.

RCN figures showed that patient numbers had increased from 6.7 per registered nurse on average in 2007 to 7.2 this year.

We know that when there are not enough nurses, patient care suffers, as the results from this survey show Theresa Fyffe RCN Scotland

RCN Scotland director Theresa Fyffe said the body was "concerned" about the survey's findings.

"Today's report shows that a lot of nurses and health care assistants feel up against it and not able, because of workload pressures, to deliver the quality of care they want to and for which they have been trained," she said.

"The nursing workforce in Scotland has grown in recent years, but there has also been a rise in the demand for health care to meet patient needs.

"We expect the next few years to be extremely challenging, particularly with the drive to move services from hospital to the community."

She said Scotland needed enough trained nurses now and in the future if high-quality and safe patient care was to be delivered.

"We know that when there are not enough nurses, patient care suffers, as the results from this survey show," Ms Fyffe added.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said it had protected investment in the NHS for this year and next, despite real term cuts in its budget.

"In addition to this we are also seeing the number of nurses and midwifes working in the NHS at a record high and also have more than 9,000 student nurses in training in this current year to help meet the demand of future years," the spokesman added.