Health
Staffing Crisis Laid Bare
The figures were requested by David Ashford.
Only one ward had a safe average level of nursing staff in December 2022, with most wards having unsafe levels throughout the entire year.
Figures have been released by Health Minister Lawrie Hooper after a question from David Ashford (Douglas).
The Healthroster system is designed to indicate a risk to safe and high-quality care where staffing levels fall below 85%. A level above an average of 85% but below 100% is considered a risk, but is acceptable in most locations.
Amongst the wards that have did not have safe staffing levels throughout 2022 are the Maternity and Children’s wards, while only Ward 7, the Neurology Ward, had safe levels of staffing for more than half the year.
Across the other wards, Ward 6 had two months where shifts reached safe levels, Ward 8 had one month and Ward 21, the Renal Unit, also had one month, in December 2022.
With a vacancy rate of about 20%, Noble’s, like hospitals across the British Isles, is in dire need of staff, with the health minister saying the gov is working to find ways to recruit new nurses.
Mr Hooper said: ‘Recruiting to nursing vacancies, which currently stands at around 20%, is one of Manx Care’s key priorities therefore a multimodal action plan has been devised and is currently being implemented. This plan intends to improve nurse recruitment and increase on island nurse training in what is a very challenging environment both on island and in the UK, with almost 50,000 nursing vacancies within England currently being reported.’
We previously reported that Noble’s ED did not meet safe standards in any month during 2022.
As with that issue, Mr Hooper said that Manx Care is working to recruit new staff both on and off-island and is working to increase the number of staff trained on-island.
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