Call for more, qualified nurses to treat older people

The Royal College of Nursing in Scotland is calling for a "patient guarantee" on the number of nurses on older people's wards, saying that the current UK-wide ratio of one nurse to around nine older patients needs to be increased to the accepted minimum standard of one nurse to seven patients.
RCN Scotland director Theresa Fyffe says: "As health boards come under increasing financial pressure to deliver the same services to more and more people, they are saving money when nurses leave by not replacing them or by replacing them with nurses and healthcare support workers at lower paid bands.
"Older people often have more complex health conditions so they must be given the best care by an appropriate mix of qualified nurses and healthcare support workers. This is particularly the case if stays in hospital are to be minimised so older people can return home or to a care home as soon as reasonably possible."
A spokesman for the Scottish government however takes issue with the report's findings, saying: "This report is based on UK-wide data - there is no breakdown of Scotland-specific data - so we cannot comment on the implications for NHS Scotland.
"What we can say is that older patients are absolutely not at risk in Scottish hospitals because of lack of nurses and to suggest otherwise is wrong - there are more qualified nurses working in our hospitals now than in 2006."
Age Scotland's Senior Policy & Parliamentary Officer Callum Chomczuk said: "Low staffing levels on hospital wards can seriously compromise older patients' care and dignity and in an ideal world we would have more trained nurses in post, however, we need to be pragmatic and should be concentrating on shifting the balance of care to where resources are focused in the community and on keeping older people healthy, safe and out of hospitals.
"We believe a major cultural shift is needed in the way that care is delivered across the NHS and the care sector and only when we begin to move the emphasis away from delivering healthcare in the acute sector and prioritise preventative spending, will we have a health & care service ready and able to meet the challenges of 21st century Scotland."
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