NHS: Nurses Do £396m Unpaid Overtime

The Royal College of Nurses has made a conservative estimate of almost £400 million as the total bill for the unpaid overtime worked by nurses in a single year in the NHS across the UK.

“Based on our survey findings we have scaled up the cost of the additional unpaid time nurses are working in the NHS across the whole of the UK,” said the report entitled Nursing Against the Odds. “We calculate the cost to be £396m of unpaid work in the NHS per year. This estimation uses the salary of a Band 5 registered nurse (first band upon registration) for the entire NHS nursing workforce in the UK, providing the most conservative method of costing.”

Torn Lives

One respondent gave a brief glimpse into a life complicated by the unpredictable and extended hours of her life-saving work. “I am a single mother of a 12-year-old boy and he has recently transitioned to secondary school. I cannot remember the last time I finished a shift on time, nor can I remember the last time I finished and had the energy to give my son the positive attention he deserves,” she said.

The college also warned about the risk to patient safety that comes from tired staff working overtime after a long shift.  The average intended length of shift was more than 10 hours. A short shift of eight hours or less was scheduled for 35% of the respondents but 70% of them worked overtime for an average of 64 minutes.

Just over half of the total respondents were meant to work a medium shift of 9-12 hours but 63% of them worked overtime for an average of 46 minutes.  Of the 9% who were meant to work a shift longer than 12 hours, a staggering 61% worked overtime for an average of 44 minutes.

“As in many other professions, nursing staff are happy to go the extra mile, especially when it means providing the level of care they know their patients deserve,” said the report.

“However, it is unacceptable for nursing staff to feel they have no other option than to work additional unpaid time for sustained periods to make up for the staffing shortages caused by short-sighted national policy decisions.”

Quality Care Compromised

The NHS is now burdened by a shortage of about 40,000 staff, a shortfall that has been worsened by Brexit as EU-citizen nurses and other workers leave the UK or become harder to recruit. And the shortage of staff has become self-propelling, as the overworked nurses remaining in the system choose to change careers or leave the UK to escape the extra workload.

A survey by the Nurses and Midwives Council earlier this year found that overtime and the inability to deliver quality care were both leading causes for staff to leave the profession. Of 4,500 midwives and nurses who left the register in the past year retirement was responsible for just half of their departures.

When the rest were asked to cite their top three reasons for leaving the register 44% named working conditions, including poor staffing and a heavy workload. Disillusionment with the poor quality of patient care (27%) was just behind a change in personal circumstances such as poor health or childcare (28%) as the next biggest reason for leaving.

The inevitable results of long shifts and overtime is an army of frustrated and burned-out nurses who are unable to deliver the care they feel is appropriate. The growing sense of exasperation leads to even more departures and more time off for stress-related illness, further increasing the burden on those left behind to keep the health service functioning.

by Stewart Vickers

The post NHS: Nurses Do £396m Unpaid Overtime appeared first on Felix Magazine.

NHS: Nurses Do £396m Unpaid Overtime posted first on http://www.felixmagazine.com/