New Frontline First report

Published: 14 May 2012

At RCN Congress this week, the RCN published a new Frontline First report showing that more than 61,000 posts are at risk of being cut across the UK. In Northern Ireland, the reports shows, trust plans for 2012-2013 anticipate a further reduction of 500 nursing posts on top of a 2% decrease in the nursing workforce in Northern Ireland since December 2009.

Janice Smyth, Director of the RCN in Northern Ireland, said: “Further plans to cut nursing posts across Northern Ireland will undermine patient safety by artificially and randomly reducing the nursing workforce with no consideration of patient need. Feedback from RCN members working in frontline services across Northern Ireland indicates that the current pressures on the system are unsustainable."

SDLP health spokesperson Conall McDevitt welcomed the RCN’s survey and said: “Nobody can ignore the worrying findings that one in five nurses are now regularly working on overcrowded wards. Regrettably it is not shocking for us to hear that patients are being treated in corridors, but the fact that many nurses feel safety is being compromised because of lack of access to essential equipment is a salient reminder to everyone in a position of leadership that things are reaching a crisis point. I appeal to the Minister to reflect carefully and respond positively to the nurses’ warnings. It is hard to escape the basic logic that bed closures must stop.”

Download the Frontline First Congress 2012 update (PDF 745KB) [how to access PDF files]