MP calls for cash to boost nursing training
Any future plans for the NHS will be doomed to failure unless the number of nurses is greatly increased, a Black Country MP has warned.
Labour MP Eleanor Smith, who worked as a nurse for 40 years, has called for new investment in nursing education to plug a staffing gap of 42,000 vacant posts in England.
Leading a Westminster Hall debate on the issue, the Wolverhampton South West MP described the situation as 'beyond shocking'.
She hit out at the Government's lack of strategy on the NHS workforce, and warned that lives were being put in danger due to nursing students being forced to plug staffing gaps.
Ms Smith told MPs: "We have got to grow our nursing workforce."
"Higher education is the best and most cost effective way to ensure we have the right number of registered nursing staff, with the right skills and experience patients need and deserve," she added.
"New routes into nursing, which are welcomed if done right, still cannot educate anywhere near enough nurses to an appropriate skill-level, to meet current, let alone future, need.
"It is time to fix the pipeline."
Theresa May has announced an extra 20.5 billion a year funding for the NHS, which is expected to address gaps in the nursing workforce as part of NHS chief executive Simon Stevens' new 10-year plan.
But Mrs Smith warned there was a 'huge risk' that the plan would result in 'money being spent on services which cannot be staffed' and 'new posts which cannot be filled'.
"Because the trained and qualified registered nurses to fill these posts simply do not exist," she said.
"Nurses do not grow on trees, just like money doesn’t."
Addressing staffing shortages, Ms Smith said: "Nursing students are being forced to plug the gaps. They should be learning, but are instead providing care to patients before they are qualified.
"All because we don’t have enough nurses. This is deeply unfair to students. It is risky for qualified nurses. It is unsafe for patients."
The MP called for 'a new deal' for nursing students, bringing back the bursary that was scrapped in August last year.
She said trainee nurses need more financial support, including the extension of the hardship fund for those who require it.
It was time to stop making nurses jobs harder and 'pushing them to the brink', she said. "You shouldn’t have to grind your teeth and keep going, knowing that nursing shortages mean that vital care is left undone.
"This situation is unsafe for everyone. It is morally reprehensible."
Ms Smith added: "There is a small window of opportunity to change the future of nursing. We can either propel it forward, or drag it back."
