No breathing space
SIR – Your report mentions that, in order to run the Nightingales, staff would have to be taken away from hospital wards, with an obvious impact on quality of care.
Before considering this, we should ensure that these wards are properly staffed in the first place, particularly as winter approaches.
The majority of the health professionals required in the Nightingales are respiratory specialists – not just doctors but also nurses, physiotherapists, physiologists and other allied professions. These are also the ones most needed in every hospital ward right now, and they have been in short supply for a long time.
Every winter we see the NHS buckling under the surge in patients needing acute care due to respiratory conditions triggered by the weather and increased spread of infections. Most of these patients are in chronically understaffed respiratory departments, whose staff are now managing the second surge of Covid-19 patients with no additional support.
Last year, the British Thoracic Society asked respiratory departments how the “winter pressures” were affecting them. Nearly three quarters reported that staff shortages were impairing their ability to cope, and many had to cancel routine clinics. We have had years to act, but this was how we entered the first Covid wave.
We must avoid rushed mitigation measures that put an overstretched, often traumatised respiratory workforce under even more pressure. NHS England and NHS Improvement need to fix staffing issues so that we are never again in this situation – for the sake of patients and staff.
Professor Jon Bennett
Chairman, British Thoracic Society
Originally published in the Letters page of the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday 11 November 2020
London, London WC1N 2PL
05/10/2023 15:03:46
British Thoracic Society
