Number of A&E nurses set to almost double at Shrewsbury and Telford hospitals
Health officials were today expected to back a huge increase in nursing staff as part of a three-year plan to improve the A&E departments at the county’s major hospitals.
The board of Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS Trust was being recommended to almost double the number of full-time nurses at its two A&E departments – at Princess Royal Hospital Telford and Royal Shrewsbury Hospital – from 78 to 149 by 2021/22.
If approved the plan will also see a move to employing more senior level nurses.
The action is being recommended to address significant problems in the trust’s emergency departments, which saw the health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, describe the performance as “inadequate” after its most recent inspection.
Both hospitals’ A&E departments have also been listed amongst the regularly worst performing in the country, with the paper being considered by the board also outlining how “crowding in the department is an issue”.
It adds that the “departments are often unable to open/ effectively run new processes due to staffing shortages”.
Targets
Other board papers have revealed that the trust’s performance on A&E performance targets have fallen again, with only 68.3 per cent of patients being admitted, transferred or discharged, within four hours of arrival.
The report on the nursing proposal says that the trust us setting its sights high with the plan.
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It states: “The proposed increase in staff numbers are required to deliver the service improvements needed. It should however be noted that the scale of change and the associated recruitment plan is highly ambitious, particularly for year one and there is a risk that we will not be able to fully implement year one of the plan.”
The report outlines that the plan would have significant benefits for future recruitment at the hospital, which has struggled and been faced with large agency costs for short term workers.
It states: "It will make the department more attractive to nurses looking to work within A&E. This will aid our future recruitment efforts as the department will be able to promote the new structure and the new way work is organised and shared reducing some of the existing work pressures.
"Staff will feel supported not only to perform well in their current roles but to gain skills and experiences allowing them to progress through their career and remain at Sath.
"One of the workforce benefits is to reduce the turnover and attrition of staff within the department and be attractive for third year students."
The costs of the proposal would be £6.5m for year one, £7.3m for year two, and £6.7m for year three. That is a significant increase on the costs of doing nothing, which would be £5.1m, £5.1m, and £4m over the same time-frame.
