Nursing in Practice May/June 2020 (issue 114) | Page 21

11 them ould e hcare ers if got to nd of risis said, ’t do ny ’ 1% of nursing rveyed said they essured to reuse -use PPE when ing in high-risk vironments workforce boost could be temporary. A poll by YouGov in early April of 996 healthcare workers for an Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank report, Care Fit For Carers, found that 21% of healthcare professionals feel Covid-19 has made them more likely to leave the profession. The fi ndings reveal they face increased pressure on their physical and mental health, as well as their wellbeing, including fi nances and housing insecurity. Primary and community care undoubtedly changed throughout March and April, but will these changes stick? And will they be positive or negative? Workforce on a cliff edge Chris Thomas, a research fellow at IPPR, believes the think-tank’s fi ndings – suggesting around 300,000 healthcare workers could quit because of coronavirus – is an underestimate since the study took place at the beginning of April. ‘We know from NHS staff surveys that morale is not particularly strong. We’ve seen working conditions get worse, and we’ve seen pay stagnate. It’s a bit of a perfect storm.’ Continually working in understaffed, potentially unsafe settings, suffering from burnout, stress and unaddressed mental health needs, will exacerbate this situation, Mr Thomas says. ‘I think we’ve got to the point where no one could blame healthcare workers if they got to the end of the crisis and said, “I can’t do this any more.”’ Workforce issues seem most likely to be worse for community nurses and school nurses after the crisis. Councils in England have cut real-term spending on adult social care by nearly 9.3% between 2009/10 and 2014/15, according to a ‘performance tracker’ from the Institute for Government think-tank and public sector accountancy body CIPFA. The 2020 Budget did not provide the long-awaited, long-term plan to fund social care. Although the disease is known to be particularly dangerous for elderly people, the sector was not ready for it. In the week ending 19 April, 651 of the 682 coronavirus outbreaks reported across the whole of England were in care homes, according to Public Health England. Care Quality Commission data states 4,343 people had died in care homes from the disease between 10 to 24 April. Yet at the time of writing, care staff were still struggling to access PPE and coronavirus testing. Professor Peter Beresford, social policy professor at Brunel University, who specialises in social care service quality, tells Nursing in Practice: ‘Social care relies on the goodwill of its staff. Given the poor working conditions most face, the commitment they show is amazing. If there is not a proper policy response to the sacrifi ce and dedication that staff have been showing under Covid-19 conditions, more may turn away.’ Community nursing suffers chronic staffi ng problems. District nurse numbers dropped from 7,000 to just over 4,000 in England since 2020, though they are facing increased workload with hospital patients discharged home early during the outbreak. Likewise, there were 30% fewer school nurses last year than in 2010, though school nurses are charged with looking after vulnerable children unable to leave home during the lockdown. ‘I think nurses will leave if we aren’t valued,’ explains healthcare worker Anthony Johnson. ‘The public might be behind us, but we need more than just clapping. We need our mental health prioritised because of the things we’re seeing on the front lines.’ He adds: ‘We need to have our work rewarded and valued, both fi nancially but also through a better settlement for the NHS. We also need to be protected now as failing to do that is essentially asking us to be sacrifi ced when we didn’t need to be.’ Sharon White, chief executive of the School and Public Health Nurse Association, says redeployments May/June 2020 nursinginpractice.com