Nurse and midwife numbers drop in Caithness
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THERE are 13 fewer nurses and midwives employed at Caithness General and Dunbar hospitals than there were three years ago.
Figures released by NHS Highland this week reveal that since August 2008, the figure has fallen from 187 to 174.
The fewer numbers of staff has been attributed to the reduction of available beds at these hospitals.
This was a result of audits of these premises which are regularly carried out, according to the health board.
News of the fall comes after the Scottish Government was accused by Highlands and Islands Labour MSP Rhoda Grant of breaking its promise to protect the NHS.
Figures from ISD Scotland, the Scottish NHS database, indicate that in September 2007, when the SNP took power, the number of nursing and midwifery posts in NHS Highland was 3256 whole-time equivalents (wte), but by June of this year the number had fallen to 3154 wte, a drop of over 100 posts.
According to Mrs Grant, NHS Highland itself predicts that the number will decline even further by March of next year to 3087 wte – a loss of 54 posts over the present financial year.
She said: “Alex Salmond’s pre-election promise to ‘protect the health service for the duration of the next parliament’ has been broken within just four months of polling stations closing,” she said.
“Dedicated overburdened staff should not be expected to work more with less resources to provide more help for ever more people.
“Frontline services at NHS Highland simply cannot meet the growth in demand for services while nursing and midwifery posts are being lost.”
However, Caithness, Sutherland and Ross MSP Rob Gibson dismissed Mrs Grant’s claims, saying protecting the NHS was one of the SNP’s main priorities. “The SNP promised to protect the health service and that is exactly what were doing, unlike the coalition Government in London,” he said.
“Rhoda Grant would do well try to get her figures up to date as these are some time ago.
“There are actually 30 more nurses working now than under the Labour
“Modern medicine and significant drops in waiting times means people are spending less time in hospital. This is a welcome improvement in the quality of care.”
NHS Highland said that it develops annual local delivery plans and workforce plans as part of an integrated approach to ensure that service redesign is achievable and that changes in workforce can best meet the needs of the population.
It has published a five-year plan to set out its principles and key priorities.
Nurse director Heidi May said it regularly reviews its staffing to respond to new models of care. “As staff learn and are supported to work in different ways, some substantive posts will no longer be required as we move towards new service models and more flexible ways of working,” she said.
“We have underpinned any staffing changes by using a number of nationally designed tools to help us with this service redesign.
“This helps us ensure that we have the right numbers of staff, with the right skills, in place to provide the care that is needed to the standard that is required.
“We are also putting into place a number of clinical quality indicators, which are measures that we use to detect whether the standards of care are rising or falling or staying the same.
“This measures the impact on the quality of care for patients in any service we have redesigned
“This approach ensures that frontline staff, who we acknowledge are very committed and are working hard, are able to keep their jobs in line with the Government’s no-redundancy policy for frontline NHS staff.”
