Responding to the publication of the Care Quality Commission’s State of Care report, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, Pat Cullen, said:
“The social care sector is in a perilous state, with thousands of nursing vacancies in England.
“The CQC makes clear that the vast majority of providers cannot recruit the staff needed. And more care homes are struggling to provide adequate care — likely because of the huge workforce pressures. The system is at breaking point.
“That care homes have had to stop providing nursing care because of staff shortages is a particularly worrying finding, as this will only make the pressure on the remaining staff even more severe.
“The RCN’s Nursing Workforce Standards were created to explicitly set out what must happen within workplaces to ensure services are safe, but they’ll never be safe if there aren’t enough nursing staff — including nurse leaders — to care for patients.
“Fair pay is the main lever available for immediate impact on nursing retention — we need to bring pay in social care in line with that of the NHS.”
Ends
Notes to Editors
The report is available on CQC's website here.
