- Healthcare assistants say they’re being told to perform tasks beyond their capabilities
- Carrying out heart scans, inserting tubes and monitoring blood pressure
- Usually responsible for making beds or feeding patients in hospitals
Sophie Borland Health Editor For The Daily Mail
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Thousands of healthcare assistants say they have to do tasks above their capabilities because of a shortage of nurses. File photo
Patients are being put at risk at the hands of thousands of unqualified hospital staff who are standing in for nurses, an alarming report reveals.
A quarter of workers known as healthcare assistants say they are being told to perform tasks beyond their capabilities.
Many are carrying out heart scans, inserting tubes and monitoring blood pressure, despite having no medical training.
There are about 400,000 healthcare assistants in England and they have been traditionally responsible for basic tasks such as making beds and feeding patients. The majority work in hospitals – although some are based in GP surgeries – and they do not need to have any medical qualifications or training to be employed.
But because the NHS is so short of nurses, they are being put under pressure to perform complex duties.
A survey of 2,300 healthcare assistants (HCAs) by the union Unison found that 24 per cent were asked to perform tasks ‘beyond the scope of their competence’. These included carrying out ECG heart scans, inserting tubes and carrying out clinical observations such as measuring blood pressure and pulse rates.
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Another 39 per cent said they hadn’t had any training to perform many daily tasks, ranging from caring for dementia patients to inserting cannulas, small tubes which provide patients with medication.
Sara Gordon, Unison’s deputy head of health, said: ‘It’s nursing on the cheap and patients ultimately suffer as a result. Their responsibilities have increased massively. They are essentially doing jobs previously done by nurses yet this is neither reflected in their pay nor in their career opportunities, so they’re struggling to make ends meet.’
The NHS is so short of nurses, departments are having to ask healthcare assistants, who usually change beds or feed patients, to insert tubes or monitor blood pressure. File photo
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, above, said the figures were evidence of funding and staffing crisis in the NHS
NHS HIDES DELAYED OPS
Thousands of operations are being cancelled at the last minute without being officially recorded by the NHS.
Hospitals are only obliged to report cancellations if they are made the same day the patient was due to be admitted.
But many are postponed one, two or three days beforehand, when there is no official requirement to log such cancellations.
Figures for 74 hospital trusts in England show 41,474 operations were cancelled between one and three days before they were due to go ahead in 2015/16. But only 33,400 of these scrapped procedures were officially recorded as being cancelled – a difference of 8,074 – according to BBC figures.
Stephanie Aiken, of the Royal College of Nursing, added: ‘There is a really serious workforce crisis in the NHS, with too few nurses for the patients we have now and the patients we expect in the future.’
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: ‘This is yet more evidence of the funding and staffing crisis in the NHS and care system, while the Government continues to turn a blind eye.’
There are 281,000 full-time nurses in the NHS – a 1 per cent increase from 2014 – but experts say this is well short of the number needed.
One assistant said: ‘I am very concerned about giving patients medication as I am not a nurse and it is not in my job and mistakes can happen.’
The Department of Health said: ‘Healthcare assistants are a vital part of hospitals and must be supported to deliver safe, high-quality patient care – that’s why there are 11,300 more nurses on our wards since May 2010 and an extra 50,000 in training.’
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