Nurses ‘taking HCA roles in fear of blame over compromised care’
Posted 26 June 2023 - 05:00
Poor working conditions and corridor care are driving some registered nurses to take lower-level jobs with less responsibility, claims professor
Qualified nurses are increasingly stepping down to work as healthcare assistants (HCA) or support workers, as they fear they will be held responsible for things going wrong at work, a nursing professor has warned.
Northumbria University assistant professor of mental health nursing Benjamin Ajibade told Nursing Standard that he was aware of nurses choosing to work in jobs they were overqualified for because they were worried about ‘multifaceted accountability’.
Registered nurses taking lower-level jobs to avoid risk of blame and disciplinary action
Dr Ajibade, who has been a registered nurse in the UK for more than 20 years and previously worked as a nurse in Nigeria, said: ‘I know tonnes of nurses who are still on the register but don’t practise as a nurse because of all the extra responsibility, being worried about complaints against them and facing disciplinary action.’
He said many nurses were concerned about being liable for things going wrong in the workplace and fearful of facing Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) fitness to practise proceedings.
Agency work can bring more pay with less responsibility
‘Nurses are suspended and removed from the register almost every day in the UK,’ Dr Ajibade said. ‘Some of the complaints are so minute, in my opinion, you wouldn’t expect them to get to that level. Then sometimes they also get referred to the police, which means the accountability is multifaceted.
‘Nursing assistants, HCAs and support workers are not on any register, so they cannot be removed from it. There is also a lower level of responsibility in these roles compared to being a fully qualified nurse. And if they do agency work, they earn about £18 an hour, so why would they continue to be a qualified nurse with all that extra responsibility?’
Nurses forced to provide care in corridors fear they will be struck off
At the RCN’s annual congress in Brighton in May, emergency department nurses spoke of their fear that they would be taken to court or struck off for providing patient care in corridors.
A survey by the RCN found six in ten nurses fear they will be struck off the NMC register or have a court case brought against them over patient harm resulting from working conditions. More than nine in ten have raised concerns that patients could be receiving unsafe care and that dignity, privacy and confidentiality are compromised.
Corridor care is becoming increasingly common across the NHS, as demand increases yet availability of hospital beds fails to keep pace.
NMC chief executive Andrea Sutcliffe has previously given assurances the regulator will take context into account when it investigates concerns about care.
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