Bisulfide

The Royal College of Nursing’s hotline has been receiving an increasing number of calls from whistleblower nurses regarding concerns about patient safety.

A survey of 5,000 nurses conducted earlier had revealed that 78% were concerned about possible negative impact on their nursing career if they reported concerns to employers. About 63% of nurses who spoke of concerns about safety of patients with employers said that action had been taken in only 35% of the cases.

According to the RCN, nurses have also raised concern over the care being given to patients at their Trusts. The ‘Raising Concerns, Raising Standards‘ hotline, when launched, was supposed to be the last resort if any nurse was concerned about complaining about poor patient care to their Trust. Those who had failed to get proper or adequate response internally could also use the hotline.

With nurses voicing concerns almost every week in the past year, the RCN has now asked for public access to these concerns. They want a register to be maintained with all complaints recorded and want the information to be made available for public viewing.

The main areas of concern pertain to insufficient time allowed for nurses to care properly for patients and inadequate staff availability. Some nurses have also mentioned unethical decision making with focus on profit making alone even if such decisions affect patient safety.

Tina Donnelly, Director of RCN in Wales, said that the very need for a hotline shows that there are serious problems in the industry. These shortcomings must be made public so that the hospital administration is forced to look into the issues and solve them as soon as possible.

Companies need to be sure that they are giving the correct instructions to employees with regard to health and safety issues. The consultancy services from Workplace Law Training can assist companies in training staff to be aware of the proper health and safety procedures by identifying and improving upon awareness and attitude, and communication about safety to improve the health and safety culture within an organisation.