00:00Patient experience is at the lowest it's ever been, so we know people are concerned about performance of the NHS.
00:07I think our only concern at the Royal College of Nursing is that
00:12we're not sure that the workforce is being given quite enough focus at this moment in time.
00:19Because actually you've still got to have people to treat patients and look after them.
00:26And their biggest challenge for that, with the largest workforce, is nursing.
00:30And I think we would say we're probably the most challenged with regard to recruitment, retention and general morale.
00:38We've got 30,000 nursing vacancies in England alone and
00:44131,000 vacancies in social care. We absolutely agree with what the government is trying to do.
00:51Shift from acute care or
00:53hospital care to community.
00:56And absolutely right.
00:57But we've still got to have people to look after
01:00patients in their own home or in a nursing home or wherever they need to be. And there are still massive
01:07workforce shortages,
01:09particularly for nursing. The real tragedy is of those that do go on to be registered nurses,
01:14one in eight leave within five years. And
01:18particularly at this time of year, during the winter, where there's been huge challenges.
01:24Patients in corridors, patients in inappropriate settings. All of that does nothing to build the morale of
01:32already really hard-working
01:35workforce. And the worst thing about that for nurses is that many of them end up not being proud of the care that they are giving.
01:43So whilst we absolutely applaud that this government is trying to do the right thing,
01:47we really do need to take the worst workforce and particularly nurses with them.
01:53We absolutely do welcome that this is being reviewed again.
01:57And we're delighted with the chair of this review because we know she is someone that will absolutely deliver action.
02:04The real concern is what if we haven't got three years to wait for things to get better.
02:11Because at the moment there is up to, in many hospitals, up to a third of patients that don't actually need to be there.
02:18That's not good for patients. And that's not good for anyone. Nursing is the lifeblood of the NHS.
02:25And we are in crisis.
02:27We're not able to recruit and retain brilliant staff in the way we want to. And what we would urge them to do is
02:34in everything they want to do,
02:37nursing is a huge part of that solution.
02:39Do something bespoke for us to show that we matter because we are essential for any reform they need to do.
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