Nurses are calling for an investigation into the Department of Health run NHS Professionals in the light of the leaked memo published by the Health Service Journal last Friday.

2020health, the online grass-roots think tank, has been hearing from nurses in response to the Department of Health leaked memo which predicted a shortfall of 14,000 nursing staff by 2011.

Director of 2020health, Julia Manning, said “We are hearing from nurses themselves that the situation is already difficult and NHS Professionals seems to be adding to the problem”.

The DoH remedy is to use bank nurses. But the reality is that student nurses are having to cover shifts for colleagues on sick leave as NHS Trusts are unable to use NHS Professionals due to cost implications.

NHS Professionals ‘NHSP’ was developed as a central alternative to local nursing agencies and NHS Trusts staff ‘banks’. It still claims on it’s web-site to provide innovative flexible staffing solutions and that it will ‘grow’ even more this year.
Yet the statistics show that there is a 20% drop in nursing shifts being worked by NHSP compared with last year.

One nurse who runs her own agency said ”I believe there should be an investigation into the NHSP, as nearly half the shifts they give out are incorrect … or they arrive to find out the shift was not needed. Plus the call centres of the NHS P have enormous staff turnover and many of the staff have little to no interest in the job. No one seems to take notice that NHS P is not doing a good job and is costing the tax paper a lot of money.”

Another nurse said “Morale is at an all time low and in my 30 plus years as a nurse I have never listen to stories from friends and colleagues that leave me feeling so dismayed and disempowered.”

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