Do We Have Too Many Nurses?
I have used the NHS a lot in the last three years, what with the death of my wife and son to cancer and a couple of strokes.
In many cases I have had appointments with doctors and other healthcare professionals and whereas a few years ago, they would have had a nurse or a technical assistant to work with them, now they usually work alone with sophisticated equipment.
I am on Warfarin and at my previous surgery, a nurse used to take a blood test once a fortnight, which was sent to the local hospital for analysis. Now, my new GP does it himself with a small instrument that gives results immediately.
So is technology taking over from nurses?
To illustrate this BBC Breakfast has just shown how to use a heart defibrillator. It all seemed fairly simple and very much led by an intelligent machine.
The Anonymous Widower 
A doctors time is much more expensive than a nurses though. My dad has had to come off warfarin due to having falls, but when he was on it the district nurse used to visit him to take the blood test, and she also spent time chatting to him to make sure he was okay. I think the role of nurses is changing, there are now nurses who can prescribe within their own specialised field, and who probably know more than some doctors about the reality of some diseases because they have more time to talk to people.
Comment by liz | April 11, 2011 |
Having been involved with the health service for some years with my wife’s elderly mother, who died last year, I can see there is a clear problem with nursing. Most nurses are very competent and committed, but lack direction. There seems to be no management of nurses and this leads to inefficient use of their resource. I have seen this at a number of hospitals in East Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and Bedfordshire. Nurses without management just seem to decide amongst themselves what to do without any sort of plan. Whatever happened to the Nursing Sister and Matron (terrible name, but a necessary role).
Comment by John | April 11, 2011 |