MEDICINE BALLS
Breaking points
THE Royal College of Nursing has surveyed more than 5,000 members and found staff at breaking point, with deaths going unnoticed for hours as patients are left stranded in corridors, toilets and car parks.
The key problems are as old as the NHS: lack of staff and lack of beds. The Tories’ workforce plan proposed a rapid expansion of “associates” who are quicker and cheaper to train than doctors and nurses, but easily confused with them.
Labour, unsure what to do, has ordered a review.
The Leng Review
PROFESSOR Gillian Leng, formerly of NICE, is looking into physician and anaesthesia associates (PAs and AAs) to determine if their roles are being expanded in the NHS without adequate regulation, training, supervision and explanation to patients.
The danger, as with all NHS staff, is that they will be expected or pressured to act beyond their competence. There have been well documented tragedies (Emily Chesterton, 30, and Susan Pollitt, 77, died after being seen by PAs). The British Medical Association (BMA) surveyed 18,000 doctors across the UK and reported that 87 percent of those who took part said the way PAs or AAs work was always or sometimes a risk to patient safety; 86 percent felt that patients were not aware of the difference between them and doctors.