Media Watch: nursing numbers adding up to a 'crisis'

The Observer reported the nursing union was “embroiled in a furious row with ministers” over the figures, with health minister Simon Burns describing them as “union scaremongering”.

NHS Confederation deputy chief executive David Stout weighed in to point out that job losses did not automatically mean worse patient care.

The Sunday Telegraph featured an interview with RCN chief executive and general secretary Peter Carter in which he described the figures as proof the NHS was reaching “crisis point”.

Mr Carter also used the interview to mount a defence of “unfairly maligned” foreign nurses who, he told the paper, are often shocked by the neglect of Britain’s older people.

The paper also carried a story about stroke survival rates, highlighting “unacceptable” differences between central London and other parts of the country, particularly the north.

The Guardian website marked Monday’s launch of the institute of health equity at University College London with an interview with its director Sir Michael Marmot. The paper suggests Sir Michael’s refusal to accept the economic situation as justification for not pursuing policies that could improve lives could cause the government “headaches”.

The Mail on Sunday reported on a much more prosaic problem in Kent where “alcoholics” have apparently been consuming antibacterial hospital hand gel.

According to the paper, there have been 15 incidents of patients imbibing the 78 per cent alcohol liquid across the county, although at least two occurred when “patients accidentally splashed themselves in the face”.

Others were more deliberate. The paper reported that one drinker was sentenced to 50 hours’ unpaid work after “downing four bottles of Softalind” at East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust’s William Harvey Hospital and smashing the hospital chapel’s donation box.