Hospital raps nursing body

6:14pm Friday 5th October 2007

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HOSPITAL bosses have admitted the new overtime system for nurses has failed to deliver, with union bosses calling for it to be scrapped.

In August, responsibility for providing nursing cover at York Hospital was transferred from the hospital trust to a national body called NHS Professionals.

The move caused outrage from nurses, who feared the change would have a detrimental impact on patient care due to a lack of specialist care.

This week, The Press revealed how York Hospital was experiencing a chronic shortage of nurses - with union bosses fearing it could cost a patient's life.

Today, the hospital's Unison representative, Edna Mulhearn, who resisted the change initially, called for NHS Professionals to be axed in York.

She said: "The proof of the pudding is in the eating and if it had worked out then I would have admitted they had done a good job, but it hasn't and it looks like the unions were right from the beginning."

"I want to see it scrapped. We could provide much better cover by using either a central hospital bank or directorate banks.

"Directorates, such as A&E, used to have very successful banks and I would like to see them brought back."

Hospital chief executive Jim Easton said: "The service of NHS Professionals has been unsatisfactory. It is fully below the standard we were led to expect. They have had real difficulties in making sure temporary staff were there when we needed them and this is disappointing."

Director of human resources Peta Hayward said NHS Professionals had failed to recruit enough staff to cover demand.

She said: "The key thing for us is that there just aren't enough people on their books to fulfil the need we have.

"There was an expectation that they would recruit quite a significant amount of extra people, but they have only got about 50 in addition to the staff that chose to transfer from our own bank.

"The reason we transferred to NHS Professionals was that they could change what they could deliver to meet our demands and they have not been able to do this."

A spokesperson for NHS Professionals said it had launched a new recruitment campaign to help address the problem.

She said: "Our recruitment team is prioritising applications to join our bank from both staff who currently work at the trust and who wish to work extra shifts and new bank-only staff.

"We only implemented at the trust in August and we are confident that our performance will improve as our service becomes embedded. Our fill rates are improving week on week."

£1.8m surplus

FINANCE chiefs at York Hospital have promised to invest more money in nurse recruitment after revealing a £1.8 million surplus.

Chief executive Jim Easton said the number one priority for the trust was increasing nurse staffing levels and the unexpected surplus would make that possible. He said they had expected to be £800,000 in deficit at this point in the year.

Robert Chapman, deputy director of finance, said: "The trust has received additional income as more patients have been treated than contracted for with primary care trusts."