Posted 30 January 2024 - 14:26
Posted 30 January 2024 - 14:26
News
Newly registered nurses describe work culture of fear, anxiety
Project highlighting workplace experiences reports challenges facing newly qualified nurses and midwives, calls for structural and cultural changes in NHS
Project highlighting workplace experiences reports challenges facing newly qualified nurses and midwives, calls for structural and cultural changes in NHS
Newly registered nurses have described work cultures ‘full of fear, anxiety and exhaustion’, comparing working in healthcare to a war zone in a new project highlighting their workplace experiences.
Follow Your Compassion, a project by the RCN Foundation and the King’s Fund, explored everyday experiences of newly registered nurses and midwives in different UK health settings.
The project asked 22 professionals to document their working life, focusing on their thoughts and feelings, capturing their life on shift and the reality of their work culture.
It comes amid what the RCN Foundation describes as a ‘profound workforce crisis’ in health and care and ‘unprecedented’ numbers of nurses and midwives leaving their professions.
Huge responsibility for newly registered nurses exacerbated by poor pay, staff shortages and workload
Nurses reported feeling fear, anxiety, unpreparedness, ignored, silenced, unsafe and exhausted by work. While there were some positive experiences such as training and management, the RCN Foundation said it was clear a huge level of responsibility was being placed on newly registered nurses.
This was exacerbated by poor pay, staff shortages and an emotionally demanding workload.
In an audio clip, one nurse said she was initially excited to start work but soon realised it was going to be challenging. She said: ‘I wasn’t prepared for the world out there – what felt like a war zone and people gasping for fresh air. The numbers of staff were cut by more than half and all I longed for was to hear my colleagues laugh.
‘Patient flow was virtually non-existent, but the admissions were consistent. Alongside these challenges was a thing called COVID causing fatigue and uncertainty when the world as we knew it had just imploded.’
RCN Foundation condemns managers’ comments that such experiences are inevitable
Another nurse said despite the challenges their work kept them going.
‘Being a nurse – and equally a human being – with some pressing problems in life makes me doubt myself most of the time… but coming into the ward and knowing that our patients rely on us to get better makes me forget my personal issues for a while. I love my job, I really do.’
The report goes beyond the current experiences of newly registered nurses and midwives, with managers and healthcare leaders sharing similar experiences of when they were newly qualified. Some managers suggested these experiences are inevitable or even necessary, which the RCN Foundation said was an indication of how deep-rooted the issue is.
It said that without the right structural and cultural arrangements in the NHS issues around retention will not improve.
RCN Foundation director Deepa Korea said: ‘This work highlights the enormous challenges facing newly qualified nurses and midwives, from chronic excessive workloads and understaffed wards to generally poor working environments.
‘We simply can’t afford to continue to lose so many talented and dedicated staff so early in their careers.’
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