Simply
write a list of “commitments”, ensure as many people as you can reads them,
then sit back and feel as if you have done something positive.
Jane Cummings, the Chief Nursing Officer for England, has had written
and is now publicising her Ten
Commitments of Nursing. They promise that nurses will promote: public
health, nurse leadership, informed patient choices, high value care,
partnerships in care, colleagues’ concerns, good quality healthcare research,
the right to education and training for nurses, the right staffing ratios, and
champion the use of technology. (Read
the full version here). These are Jane Cummings’ strategy to improve the
quality of nursing care in England. But how helpful are they?
These
ten commitments will not make any difference because they are only words on a
page, there is no backing of resources or money behind them.
Nursing
faces one of its biggest crises of morale in decades. Nurses are over-worked,
under staffed, under paid and under trained; and yet this government expects us
to do more and more with less recourses. We are now expected to roll-out a full
seven day NHS with no extra funding for the increased demand.
Since
2010, we’ve seen a huge decrease in the number of nurses in the NHS (1), as
they leave to work for agencies with better pay or leave the NHS altogether;
we’ve seen an increase in our workload, with no extra resources, we’ve suffered
a cut in our real pay (0% pay rises since 2010 when David Cameron entered 10
Downing Street) (2), budgets for training have been slashed as NHS funding is
cut in real terms (3), and now student
nurses are to be robbed of their bursaries (4).
These
ten commitments won’t stop another Mid Staffs scandal (5) happening again when
the strain on the NHS is forcing us ever nearer another one. Why isn’t Jane Cummings doing something about this? The real
problems of the NHS revolve around lack of resources (6), not nurses being
without Ten Commitments to quote, why
isn’t Jane Cummings speaking out on this until she goes horse?
Many Trusts have Mission Statements, some of them have spent
thousands of pounds to create their Mission Statements, all these Trusts will
have had to spend a lot of resources and staff hours on agreeing these Mission
Statements and publishing them throughout their organisation. But how many of
these Mission Statements on their own have improved patient care and increased
staff’s clinical skills and care? I suspect the answer is less than one. To
improve patient care takes time, skill and resources, not just words on paper.
Even if all NHS Trusts adopted these Ten Comments where are the
resources to implement them? Many, if not all of them, require a solid
commitment of resources and money behind them to make them work, yet all Jane
Cummings seems to be backing them with words.
I’m so busy at work that I regularly leave an hour late and I
have forgotten the last time I didn’t work through my lunch break. I don’t have
the time to do these ten commitments as well, but I don’t remember her asking
me about them.
Drew Payne
