Question

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AUTHOR BACKGROUND:

Dr. Edward Alan Glasper, Editor-in-chief of the journal and Emeritus Professor of Children’s and Young Peoples Nursing at the University of Southamptom, discusses the perpetual problem of staff shortages within the children’s nursing workforce.

SUMMARY:

The article was titled, “Does a shortage of specially trained nurses pose a threat to the provision of optimum care for sick children in the hospital”, data collected by Dr. Edward Alan Glasper. The report shows “168 acute care hospitals inspected the previous year (2016), some core services such as emergency departments were failing to deliver optimum care” (Glasper, 2016). The data was collected from hospitals in England, who were experiencing an increase in the pressure of taking care of many patients at once, and larger bed occupancy rates. This article goes over the dangers and risks that are taken when any hospital is under staffed, and have too many patients that need immediate care. In recent years, the England CDC made it a law that there “should be a minimum of two registered children’s nurses at all times in all inpatient and day care areas; minimum of 70:30 % registered to unregistered nursing staff” (Glasper, 2016). But the fundamental problem is that there are simply not well trained enough nurses, or enough nursing assistants to consistently meet these standards. General nurses and/or adult nurses have not developed the skills and competencies needed to deliver safe and effective care to the sick children. Many hospitals, even in North America, hospital managers find it very difficult to meet the national standards that have been developed for the staffing of sick children’s care departments. When hospital managers do not have enough nurses for the day, they are pressured to give some nurses over the recommendation; this puts the nurse at risk of having a medical error, and just puts the patient in danger. To avoid mistakes like this, “nurses must be aware of their limitations, and role boundaries, acknowledge their professional limitations and be able to make accountable decisions about their ability to practice safely and effectively” (Glasper, 2016).

PREPARING NURSES:

This specificity of “knowledge and its application to practice across the parameters of health care delivery and throughout the healthcare journey of the child, requires an in-depth knowledge sources” (Glasper, 2016). In England, the workers will be known as ‘nursing associates’ and will follow a two-year foundation degree and sponsored by a range of hospitals. The first course was commenced in December 2016. The people participating in the new educational pathway took part in a two-year foundation degree, to provide the needed skills, and knowledge to become a better nurse, and to avoid unintentional accident on a patient they are caring for.

CONCLUSION:

Maintaining optimum-staffing levels of fully qualified children’s nurses is challenging for many organizations across the world. New initiatives to enhance the workforce of those who have the skills, knowledge and aptitude to care for sick children are to be commended and will address real and potential threats to the provision of optimum care for sick children in the hospital.

REFERENCE:

Steer, J. (2010). Reviews. Developing Practical Skills for Nursing Children and Young People. Nursing Standard, 25(6), 30. Retrieved from http://lmcproxy.lwtech.edu:2507/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=54857832&site=ehost-live

Please help to write comment on their post based on what you read in their article as well as their summary.

Answer 1

Answer: Due to lack of nurses, those patient get affected a lot. Many of the hospitals are unable to maintain the staff level and meet the requirements. This also leads to delivering the low quality of care to the patient as less staff and had to manage multiple patients and do the task. Due to a lack of nurses, these healthcare professionals are made to work more than their normal working hours which increases the workload. Hence this causes burn out in the nurses and lead to low quality of care. For better outcome, every hospital needs at least minimum staff for the care of the patients as maintaining optimum-staffing levels of fully qualified children’s nurses is challenging for many organizations across the world.