Vital Training Withheld From Nurses Due To Cutbacks

A recent Royal College of Nursing survey has revealed that most nurses are missing out on vital training including fundamental life-support and dealing with infections like MRSA. A survey of over 3,000 nurses has found that more than a third had been unable to go to compulsory training in the last year due to staff shortages and a lack of cover. The RCN discovered that the nurses were forced to either train in their own time or miss out all together.

The poll also found that 34% of the nurses had used their own annual leave to train and nearly 40% had used their own money to keep up to date with developments in certain areas such as infection and child protection.

Only 30% of the nurses said they felt like they were up to date with their training and the RCN has discovered that over a third of nurses had observed cuts in NHS services over the past year and over half feared they would lose their jobs in the near future.

Those surveyed also believed that most patients requiring specialist care were not receiving it and this was a result of a diminishing number of specialist nurses. "We know from previous economic downturns that training is often the first place managers look when they need to start making cuts, even though nurses need to be up to date with issues such as infection control and child protection at all times." said Executive director of nursing and service delivery for the RCN, Janet Davies .

Ms Davies added that it is up to managers to ensure the staff are up to date with training and can access it when they need to but they are starting to struggle with two key difficulties, staff shortages and lack of training.

In spite of this, a Department of Health spokesman said: "The 2009 NHS staff survey results confirm that NHS organisations are taking up their responsibilities for staff training and personal development set out under the NHS Constitution and that they recognise the importance of talented staff who are fully supported, in delivering high quality patient care.

Cutbacks for the NHS could mean fewer jobs for nurses and many graduates are looking for nursing jobs Ipswich

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