The Sunday Mirror reported how the Royal College of Nursing wants to reverse cuts to addiction, mental health and other support services so 726 preventable deaths can be stopped. They say that new data shows two rough sleepers died every day last year. The Office for National Statistics figure doubled in six years and drug deaths rose 55 per cent. The funding call comes from thousands of nurses working in homeless health.
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Nursing in Practice reports that the nursing staff shortfall is the ‘most concerning’ shortage across the NHS. A report; ‘The state of the NHS Provider sector’, pointed out that the Health Foundation, The King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust have projected that on current trends, in 10 years’ time, the NHS will have a shortfall of 108,000 full-time equivalent nurses. It also raised concerns around the exodus of nurses from the European Union (EU) with 1,584 more nurses and health visitors from EU countries leaving their roles than joining them between July 2017 and July 2018.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is warning that the lack of watertight legal responsibilities for the supply and planning of the health and care workforce is fuelling the staffing crisis. NHS figures show that there are now a record 43,617 empty nursing posts in the NHS in England alone, a figure compounded by a global shortage of nurses and the removal of the nursing bursary. In the NHS in England, 12% of posts are now without a full time Registered Nurse.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council officially approved the #FutureMidwife standards on 3rd October. They will be formally published in January and be fully implemented by September 2021. These standards will ensure that midwives continue to have the knowledge and skills to be the lead caregivers for women and babies throughout their maternity journey.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a worldwide annual campaign taking place during October, involving thousands of organisations, to highlight the importance of breast awareness, education and research. The aim is to get as many people as possible involved in raising awareness and funds to help support life-saving research and life-changing support. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month do something great – make life-saving research happen by supporting wear it pink.
The Nursing Times has reported that nursing education in England became more racially diverse following the removal of the bursary, according to new analysis by the education regulator. In the first academic year following the controversial funding reform, the number of students from ethnic minority backgrounds starting a pre-registration nursing degree increased by 4% compared to the previous year. However, this rise was not enough to outstrip the 16% decline in white students seen over the same period, found the Office for Students (OfS).
Nursing in Practice reports that perinatal mental health has an increased prominence in the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) new proposed standards for ‘the next generation of midwives’. The NMC hopes its new standards will help ensure midwives have the right knowledge and skills to identify a woman’s mental health needs as early as possible, with perinatal mental health problems affecting up to 20% of women. The standards emphasise continuity of care, requiring midwives to provide ongoing midwifery care across all healthcare settings alongside other professionals while acting as an advocate for mother and baby. The proposed standards are up for approval by the NMC governing council on 3 October this year and would go into effect from 31 January 2020 for the next ten years.
Liberty’s Mother has released her EP ‘I Can Love You From Here’. She is sharing the song, with every penny made on this project going to Tommy’s the baby charity, with the wider aim to raise awareness about Baby Loss. Liberty died a very preventable death eight years ago and Liberty’s Mother is fighting to eradicate preventable stillbirths.
The Health Service Journal has reported that staff failing to act on abnormal fetal heartbeats during labour was the most common contributing factor in cases where babies were born with brain damage. These were then referred to NHS Resolution’s new early notification (EN) scheme. Analysis of the first 12 months of the scheme found issues with fetal heart monitoring were involved in almost 70 per cent of the 96 cases examined. The EN schemes aim is to halve the rate of stillbirth, neonatal death and brain injury by 2025. Before the scheme, the average length of time between an incident occurring and an award for compensation was 11.5 years.
The Guardian reports that privatisation of NHS care will be significantly curbed under confidential plans. The Guardian has obtained an NHS England document which summarises 22 key changes it believes will be included in an NHS reform bill due to be published next month. New proposals would remove the current requirement for local NHS bodies in England to put out to tender any contract worth more than £615,278. The requirement has contributed to a significant increase in outsourcing of NHS services.
Community groups collectively working together will make a bigger difference in Bognor Regis and surrounding areas, says Danny Dawes, who set up Grandad’s Front Room CIC (Community Interest Company) in 2016. He has spent three years working to help tackle numerous social issues in the area. The groups working together include Chichester’s Four Streets Project, founded by Donna Ockenden, which last month, saw a record high in the number of people sleeping rough in Chichester. This year, more than 750 homeless people have come through the doors of Grandad’s Front Room with the higher numbers appearing in the last few months.
The Guardian reports that the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth has fallen by more than a third since 2000, according to new UN figures, but the rate of decline remains way off track to meet global targets to cut maternal deaths. Figures published on Thursday show that in 2017 an estimated 295,000 women died from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, compared with 451,000 at the turn of the century. Globally, the maternal mortality ratio – the number of deaths per 100,000 live births – now stands at 211, compared with 342 in 2000.