Damning report on unsafe NHS staffing levels delayed by Tories

NHS staffing cuts. Ward photo Yuya Tamai, scissors photo Wikimedia Commons, both Creative Commons, composite James Ivens

NHS staffing cuts. Ward photo Yuya Tamai, scissors photo Wikimedia Commons, both Creative Commons, composite James Ivens   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

‘Heather’, NHS nurse

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) – guideline setter for NHS procedures – allegedly held back a vital report on Tory instructions.

Nice did not publish damning research on NHS safe staffing levels – after health secrretary Jeremy Hunt apparently intervened.

Problem

Inspectors at two-thirds of NHS hospitals have identified low staffing as a problem.

No nurse will be fooled by any attempt to conceal grim statistics on the NHS staffing crisis. We work through our breaks and on our days off to clear the caseload.

Delaying publishing results by “rolling the Nice research into work by NHS England” shows this government wants to hide the effects of its attacks.

Nice is an organisation under pressure. It agreed to delay the report on the ridiculous assertion that it would be “confusing” – made by a civil servant working for Hunt.

Nice now expresses concern that releasing its bleak staffing figures will “generate public interest”. Somehow this is meant to impede NHS improvement. It’s a disgrace.

The NHS belongs to all of us. It is right and proper that those of us who work in and use it should be kept fully informed of all developments. It is difficult to imagine how safe staffing can somehow be divorced from attempts to improve the NHS.

Cowardly

Nice’s failure to respond to Freedom of Information requests, and its retreat before the government, are cowardly acts. They are not in the public interest.

Tory attacks are supported by the overall failure of unaccountable statutory bodies like Nice to stand up for the best interests of patients. The Socialist Party campaigns for the NHS to be fully nationalised under the control of democratic committees of workers and patients.


Cutting the cord

Hospital departments which care for newborns are dangerously understaffed. Premature baby charity Bliss has found 64% of neonatal units have too few nurses. 70% of intensive care units hold more babies than is safe. And two in five units don’t support parents of premature babies with mental health specialists.