2013 was a horrible year for nursing—nurses are “burnt out,” says chief

The reaction to the Mid Staffs scandal focused too much on nurse training and not enough on the fact that experienced nurses and their NHS colleagues are “burnt out” by understaffing, according to Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. In a wide ranging interview, Carter said that until staffing levels are increased, it will not be possible to guarantee quality nursing care.

“The Francis report [into failings at Mid Staffs trust] showed that on some occasions there were two nurses on 34 bedded wards for elderly people,” said Carter. “The two nurses could have been Florence Nightingale, but with that ratio you simply cannot provide quality care.”

The college keeps pointing out that there is a “growing body of evidence . . . that the only way to ensure patient safety is to have adequate staff with the right skills,” and this was a key recommendation of the Francis report.

Yet the government has so far failed to act on those recommendations, Carter says.

“My worry is this: we have a plethora of reports and inquiries and the recommendations that tend to get implemented are the ones . . . that don’t have resource implications while [those with] resource implications tend to disappear into the long grass over time.”

One trust, the Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, announced it would recruit 200 more nurses within hours of the report by NHS England’s medical …