Staffing difficulties in the long term care nursing - Essay Example

A recent research effort suggests that nearly 60% of all people will need extended help in one or more of the areas above during their lifetime (Thomas, 2008). The need for long-term care may for a short period or it may go on for years because it all depends on the underlying reasons for requiring the care. Temporary long term care includes nursing care needed for patient rehabilitation from a hospital stay, recovery from illness, recovery from injury, recovery from surgery and care needed by those with terminal medical condition (Dickinson, 2006).

On the other hand, ongoing long term care is help need by those with chronic medical conditions, chronic severe pain, permanent disabilities and those with dementia among others. The main objective of this research paper is to examine staffing difficulties in long term care nursing One main staffing difficulty in the long term care nursing is clinical hand over. Clinical handover is the transfer of responsibility for care of patients between health care professionals (Whitt N, 2007). To this date, with the ever-transformation face of working hours for nurses the domain of handovers has come under debate in recent years.

There is little or no study that has been carried out in this area and globally there is meager literature about nurse handovers in the long term care nursing. It is truer to say that as nurse work hours decrease, the number of handovers conducted should logically increase. In addition, the benefit of the patient being treated by a less fatigued nurse may be offset by the risk of information breakdown due to poor handover practices and systems (Whitt N, 2007). A reviewed research has found that more than half of nurses report that they had encountered difficulties more than seven times in their most recent clinical rotation.

This in essence directly contributes to a poor handover in the long-term nursing care.. Other studies reveal