Daily Insight: Stretched staff and slipped standards

Staffing shortages at York hospital have been highlighted by the Care Quality Commission as it issued a warning notice requiring urgent improvements.

Inspectors said patients were not always fed properly while staff recounted not being able to wash patients for up to three days as they focused on those in the most need. The hospital relied on bank and agency staff, or shifted staff between wards, in a bid to fill staffing gaps.

But the care watchdog said nurse and healthcare assistant numbers were too low on six of seven of the wards they looked at.  

The findings – that staff shortages are affecting patient care – will not be surprising to hospital chief executives across the country. As CEO Simon Morritt put it: “Many of the issues raised by the CQC were known to us, and reflect the extreme pressures facing the trust, the demands of covid and associated staff absence, and the well-documented recruitment challenges.

“The report demonstrates that, when faced with these pressures, it is not always possible to give the standard of care we would want for all of our patients all of the time.”

Much ado about nothing

The Messenger report on the future of NHS leadership made some big headlines but it wasn’t nearly as radical as the health and social care secretary Sajid Javid woud have us believe, writes our editor Alastair McLellan in his editorial.

The media seized on a press release detailing the main points, with the actual report not published until the following afternoon – after the media caravan had moved on.

“The health secretary persisted with his now well-established strategy of stating he was preparing radical change, without actually proposing anything approaching it,” says Alastair.

For when the review finally arrived – the comparisons with the seminal Griffiths report made at its launch were revealed to be laughable, he adds.

“It may be full of well-meaning and often well-judged sentiments – but the recommendations were either peripheral (a five-day course for middle managers) or so vague as to be virtually worthless (proposals to make equality, diversity and inclusion everyone’s business).” Read Alastair’s full article here to find out why he thinks the Messenger report is a “con”.