Lack of staffing in hospitals - Essay Example

Introduction s cannot survive without staff. s’ staffing varies differently due to variations in institutional functions. We define staffing as the organization of individuals through selection, training and allocating responsibilities to the individuals. Staffing is a managerial function that involves recruitment of personnel, selection, orientation, and evaluation of subordinates. Worldwide institutions face problems of poor staffing and this affects their performance adversely. Some institutions have poor conditions that may end up with discouraging of the staff and this, in turn, leads to inadequacy of staff within such institutions.

Lack of staffing in hospitals may affect the general performance of hospitals and as such, the hospitals end up offering poor services to patients. The aim of this paper is to give out an analysis of lack of nurses within the hospitals in UK. Lack of Nurses in Hospitals in UK Lack of healthcare staff in the UK has led to the deterioration of health services. This has caused some major problems that have led to increased complications among patients since most of the diseases are not treated at their tender age.

There has been an increase in deaths by approximately 10 per cent. The few available staff has busy schedules as they attend to all the patients. This makes them not to perform well hence slowing down the economic performance of the country. The main cause of lack of healthcare staff in the UK dates back to 1960s. This is when the nurse pay deteriorated causing disputes in the nursing sector. The deterioration in the pay was due to high rates of inflation that was experienced in the UK during those times.

The government proposed a no pay rise in the nurses’ salary (Morris, 2005). This has been discouraging nurses and most of them tend to move to the private sectors that seem to offer better pay to the nurses. The available nurses in the public health facilities in the UK sometimes have to offer part time services to other health facilities. This means that the nurses have to neglect some patients to attend to others. Such actions have led to death of some patients who may require emergency attendance.

Secondly, the bill of hiring temporary workers by the private institutions have relatively worsened healthcare within the UK. Nurses end up neglecting their duties in public hospitals to look for temporary job at private hospitals that give a better pay. The payroll of the nurses has frustrated their services leading them to act so. Their payroll of 212 pounds has to be reduced by twenty percent as NHS fee (Hennessy & Donnelly, 2013). The pay is not fair enough putting into consideration their workload.

This bill if not taken seriously could lead to total failure of some health facilities due to lack of nurses. The other cause of lack of staff in the UK hospitals is the poor working conditions in terms of workforce, staffing and design (Morris, 2005). The workforce in most of the healthcare facilities is so rigid and one nurse has to attend to many patients. The resultant effect is that nurses are strained and therefore they end up giving poor services hence increasing the chances of medical errors.

Poor staffing and design maybe in the form of workflow design whereby available nurses have to do multiple jobs like being midwife and caring for patients at the same time. An example is the Stafford Hospital in which death tolls went up to 1200 due to neglect. Measures Taken against the Lack of Nurses The shortage of staff has become a major concern; therefore, it has taken some affirmative measures to address the problem. Currently, the UK is importing nurses from other countries who are willing to work under the available pay (Hennessy & Donnelly, 2013).

This would reduce the patient nurse ratio hence increasing the efficiency offered by the nurses. The issue brought by medical errors needs addressing. Workplace lighting is known to be a major step in eliminating errors and it should therefore be implemented in all the healthcare facilities at a modest cost. The UK should also establish nurses’ body. The body should be responsible for nurses’ rights in negotiating a better pay and ensuring that there is proper staffing within the health facilities.

The government should enforce laws governing the body to ensure that it does not fail as others did in the 1970s (Morris, 2005). Having such bodies would ensure that the nurses rights are fought for at the national level and thus this would seek the state’s attention in hearing the plight of the nurses. The services offered at the healthcare facilities need to be improved by embracing technology that would reduce the human labor force. This would ensure that the nurses only focus on offering medication to patients.

The UK is making efforts of improving healthcare by embracing technology (Hennessy & Donnelly, 2013). IBM has offered to provide the NHS with forms of technology that would shape a patient system. This would ensure higher standards of patient care that would lead to a better care system. As a result, more people would seek medical attention and the money generated could be used in increasing the nurses’ pay and hiring more nurses. This would reduce the workload per nurse that would result in increased efficiency in the health services.

Fair workload would in turn attract more nurses, hence increasing staff. Conclusion Health improvement is a major tool in economic development. Poor healthcare may slow down the economic performance and lead to increased mortality rates and this may act as a barrier to development. The UK should therefore consider more ways of improving its healthcare services to increase the number of staff, which would in turn eliminate deaths caused by neglects that are slowing down its economic development.

It should also offer a much better pay that will encourage people to venture in the nursing field. This would ensure that it has adequate number of nurses in the future. References Morris S, 2005, Policy Features for UK Health, Radcliffe Publishing, United Kingdom. Hennessy P & Donnely L. 2013, Seventeen NHS hospitals have dangerously low numbers of nurses, Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/heal-our- hospitals/9797839/Seventeen-NHS-hospitals-have-dangerously-low-numbers-of- nurses.html. [Accessed on 07 March 2013]