Frontline First - Wales

A new Welsh Government was elected in May 2011. The new Health & Social Services Minister Lesley Griffiths and the First Minister Carwyn Jones have both promised that the number of whole-time equivalent registered nurses in the NHS in Wales will not fall.

The latest figures available on nursing numbers were published by the Welsh Government in September 2010. They show that overall nursing numbers remained stable between 2009 and 2010.

Table 1 Nursing Numbers (from Welsh Government)

This is clearly good news and the Royal College of Nursing would hope that this picture remains constant for the next few years. There are very few areas of expenditure where the affect on outcome (patient safety and quality of care) is so evident.

However there is a wider context to consider. The current numbers of registered nurses and healthcare support workers in the NHS may be not be sufficient to ensure quality of care for the volume of work they are expected to deliver.

The Royal College of Nursing remains concerned about: 

• The extra hours nurses are working
• The high levels of bed occupancy
• Vacant posts not being filled
• Maternity and sickness cover not being provided
• Continued reliance on temporary nursing
• The ban on continuous professional development within paid working hours 

All of these are factors which are having a detrimental effect on the quality of patient care.

[1] Please note that between 2007 and 2008 figures from the Electronic Staff Record began to be used accounting for much of the apparent drop in numbers.