East Midlands Royal College of Nursing discuss damning report into the state of the NHS
It's found that patients across the country are dying in corridors and sometimes going undiscovered for hours
The Royal College of Nursing published new findings into what is going on in England's hospitals as staff try to manage the number of people needing care.
David Kirwan is the Head of Operations at the union in our region, and says something has to change now:
"I can guarantee people have died with no dignity in a hospital corridor, or they have been left for hours without pain relief, or they've had to use a bed pan in public. That cannot be acceptable, it has to be actioned today.
"Nurses are having to care for 20, 30 , 40 plus patients at a time and when you think about that amount of people that are under the care of one nurse, we're seeing instances of patients dying on corridors and not being identified for several hours."
David adds that it's having an impact on nurses morale and retention:
"Their purpose when they go to work is to care for people and make people's lives better, and what they're actually seeing at the moment is people in discomfort, and then their mental health is suffering. So they need to take time away from the workplace which then worsens the situation."
Testimony from across the country:
"Overflow of patients and corridor. No possible space anywhere else, patient is safer in the corridor than the waiting room. Some patients who are well enough receive their meds in the waiting room in front of everyone which I find embarrassing."
"A patient in end of life care was kept in corridor along with his family members. I felt really sorry for the patient and family members. I said sorry to my patient and family members. It was really an awkward situation for all."
"We are supposed to put patients privacy and dignity as essential but daily the patients are squeezed into bays with no privacy or dignity. No emergency buzzer or space to allow for any privacy or dignity. The nurses struggle with space to facilitate any decent care for the patients. We wonder why there are Hospital acquired infections. The extra patients on the wards doesn’t come with extra nurses to facilitate their care."
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN chief executive, told the briefing the report was "harrowing", adding staff were leaving because they "cannot do it any more".
She added: "This winter is absolutely no surprise to any of us.
"Wards, departments were escalated into areas they shouldn't be all through June, July, August, September - it's become normal to put patients in all sorts of areas that I can promise you, being a chief nurse for nearly 10 years before this job, prior to Covid, would have been seen as abhorrent and totally unacceptable.
"That's the real tragedy here, is that care that would have been seen prior to Covid as shocking has been normalised."
She said the NHS did not have enough beds or nurses to meet demand and that was occurring throughout the year, adding: "I really want to make sure that flu is not used as the excuse for this."
Regarding "chair care", Prof Ranger said: "We talk about 'fit to sit' as the new mantra."
Turning to the Government, she said there was a need for ministers to acknowledge the "scale of the problem", adding that all of this could have been predicted.
Of the Prime Minister's drive to cut waiting lists, she said: "It's very difficult to get on top of elective care if you don't get on top of emergencies. They are two sides of the same coin."
We've approach the Department of Health for comment.