Scandal of lives lost due to turnover of NHS staff

That is the finding of a disturbing report by the  University of Surrey and Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust, which estimated that more than 4,000 patients die each year as a consequence of the turnover of doctors and nurses within the NHS.

The report, published in the British Medical Journal, says that a lack of continuity, coupled with a dependency on agency staff and a shortage of expertise, has created a lottery where some patients do not receive the best possible care.

In part, we are reaping the results of a lack of long-term planning going back decades, coupled with exponential growth in demand fuelled by an ageing population. Throw in never-ending reforms, coupled with the chaos of Covid, and it is hardly surprising turnover is high. 

It is therefore all the more important then for the NHS to come up with a prescription to mitigate these effects. Temporary staff need to be better briefed, so that they know all about the patients in their care the moment they take responsibility for them. The pay imbalance between agency and permanent staff needs to be addressed, which may mean a cap on how much agencies can charge. There needs to be better communication between staff, and better long-term planning to bring stability to our wards. 

High staff turnover is rarely good for any industry, but that is especially true in health care, where so much rests on the relationship between patients and those tending to them.

It is wholly unacceptable lives are being put at risk by constant changes to staff. The  Government needs to get a grip - and fast