Patients left to ‘die alone’ over nurse staff shortages in NHS, report shows
'It is left to us to decide who gets seen and who gets missed,' one nurse said.
People in NHS hospitals are being abandoned to die alone as staff shortages have pushed the healthcare system to its breaking point.
A report by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) paints a heartbreaking reality for patients.
Its research suggested that only a third of shifts had enough registered nurses on duty, underscoring the severe strain on the system.
One nurse working in the community in the south-west of England said: ‘We have days when we have 60 visits unallocated because we do not have enough staff.
‘Every day we are asked to do more. We are always rushing.’
According to the RCN, nurses are often caring for dozens of patients at a time. As a result, it urged for safety-critical limits on the maximum number of patients one nurse can be responsible for to be introduced.
A survey of more than 11,000 nursing staff found many were ‘demoralised’ from being unable to keep people on wards safe.
Only a third of them said their shift had the planned number of registered nurses on it.
In multiple cases on accident and emergency and outpatient departments, nurses had more than 51 patients to care for a one time.
Another nurse, also working in the community in the south of England, said: ‘We leave over 50 patients requiring nursing care unseen on a daily basis due to poor staffing levels. This leads to increases in hospital admissions and death.
‘It is left to us to decide who gets seen and who gets missed, which is heartbreaking.’
Another staff member in the West Midlands said they do not have time to make sure that patients are ‘fed properly and have adequate drinks’.
They added: I have not been able to sit with patients who are dying, meaning they have been left to die alone.’
Meanwhile, a midwife working in a hospital in Yorkshire described the provided care as ‘completely unsafe’ due to ‘unacceptable staffing levels’.
They said: ‘The standards of what is acceptable care for a service to provide have fallen so low, the benchmark is survival.’
RCN acting general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger stressed that nursing staff are fighting a losing battle to keep patients safe across the NHS.
She added: ‘When patients cannot access safe care in the community, conditions worsen and they end up in hospital where workforce shortages are just as severe. This vicious cycle fails staff and patients – it cannot go on.
‘We desperately need urgent investment in the nursing workforce but also to see safety-critical nurse-patient ratios enshrined in law.
‘That is how we improve care and stop patients coming to harm.’
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