UK hospitals are struggling with severe nursing shortages, causing patients to tragically die alone, as reported recently.
This situation arose after the British government introduced measures in 2023 to reduce migration, including restrictions affecting international students’ families.
A recent study by the Royal College of Nursing revealed that only about one-third of nursing shifts have enough staff. This shortage forces nurses to care for large numbers of patients at once. Experts are now calling for safety-focused limits on nurse-patient ratios.
The RCN’s survey of over 11,000 nursing professionals showed widespread demoralization due to the inability to ensure patient safety. Only a third of respondents in hospitals and community settings reported having the planned number of registered nurses during their shifts. Many A&E and outpatient nurses had to care for more than 51 patients at a time.
One community nurse in southwest England said, “We have days when we have 60 visits unallocated because we don’t have enough staff. We are always rushing.” Another nurse in the south of England shared, “We leave over 50 patients requiring care unseen daily due to poor staffing levels. This leads to increases in hospital admissions and death. It is left to us to decide who gets seen and who gets missed, which is heart-breaking.”
In the West Midlands, a hospital nurse reported, “I have not been able to sit with patients who are dying, meaning they have been left to die alone. I have not had the time to make sure patients are fed properly and have adequate drinks.”
A midwife in Yorkshire described the situation as “completely unsafe care due to unacceptable staffing levels.”
RCN acting general secretary Nicola Ranger said nurses are “fighting a losing battle to keep patients safe” and described the staffing levels as “dangerous to patients and demoralizing for nursing staff.” She added, “We desperately need urgent investment in the nursing workforce but also to see safety-critical nurse-patient ratios enshrined in law. That is how we improve care and stop patients coming to harm.”
Meanwhile, the Nigerian government has implemented a rule preventing nurses from seeking overseas employment until they have completed two years of service after graduation. However, many Nigerian nurses are ignoring this rule due to poor working conditions.
Recently, hundreds of Nigerian nurses protested at health regulator offices in Abuja and Lagos, demanding the repeal of this policy. They are upset about the new rules that restrict them from working abroad for two years after finishing their training, aiming to stop the outflow of medical professionals.
A report from the UK Nurses and Midwifery Council (NMC) in March 2024 showed a dramatic 625% increase in Nigerian-trained nurses registering in the UK in the six months leading up to September 2023. During this period, 12,099 nurses trained in Nigeria joined the UK workforce, compared to just 1,670 registered nurses in the same timeframe in 2022.
The NMC stated, “We’ve seen the number of professionals joining the register for the first time between April and September more than double in the last five years – from 14,311 joiners in the six months to September 2018 to 30,103 in the same period this year.”
