'We can't take much more'

MORE BRADFORD nurses could resign and patients could suffer because of the Government's latest hospital health drive, a nurses union leader has warned.

Helen Alderman, pictured right, from the Bradford branch of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said Health Secretary Alan Milburn's new drive away from cutting waiting lists and towards tackling heart disease and cancer could place even greater strain on the city's nurses.

Mrs Alderman, a district nurse, said the burden of more targets could be the final straw for nurses who are already under strain, particularly at Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke's Hospital.

She said: "I was absolutely incensed when I heard what he had said and at his lack of realism.

"He is just making sweeping statements from his ivory tower.

"It's not right that the Government raises patients' expectations without making sure that the fundamentals are in place to carry them out."

Mrs Alderman said the government needs to launch an intensive recruitment campaign, pay nurses more and stop saying that there is less money to spend on patient care if nurses get a pay rise.

"But we are patient care and therefore spending money on us will not denigrate patient care but improve it because hopefully it will retain nurses," she said.

"Now, unfortunately if you're a patient in hospital, care that used to be by a qualified nurse is given by an auxiliary because we haven't got the qualified nurses," she said.

"This concerns us - it concerns all nurses and we're very fearful for the future of healthcare."

She said some nurses are having to cope with a workload which used to be done by two nurses.

"Officially I work from 8.30am to 5.15pm but in reality my hours are 7.30am to 6pm with no lunch break," she said.

Mrs Alderman, 50, who started nursing in 1966 gets paid £23,000 a year which includes extra money for teaching district nurses.

But despite growing pressure and stress in her job and unlike many of her colleagues, she is not looking around for a new job.

"I'm addicted to it," she said. "I still like the warm feeling in my chest of a job well done.

"I still get that feeling but not as deeply as I used to do.

"I would be bored in any other job. The diversity of nursing especially community nursing keeps me going."

Despite the drawbacks of nursing today, she retains some optimism that improvements will be brought about by primary care groups (PCGs) which were launched by the government in April.

Made up of GPs, nurses and other health professionals, PCGs aim to provide the services most needed by the residents they serve.

Mrs Alderman belongs to the Bradford South and West PCG which, as if to endorse her hopes, has just won a national award for improvements it has made including providing two new intermediate care centres so patients can receive outpatient and surgical treatment closer to home.

BRADFORD HOSPITALS bosses are keen to highlight statistics which show how they fare when it comes to the number of nurses leaving and how good they are at holding onto them.

A spokesman at Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust - which runs Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke's Hospital - said their turnover rate was lower than the national average and retention rate was better than the national average.

"Our recruitment is going reasonably well in the face of a difficult national position," he said.

"Our current vacancy level is about 30 against a backdrop of more than 1,200 nurses and midwives on our payroll.

"This compares to as many as 60 or 70 vacancies this time last year.

"After a lot of hard work and the launch of a number of innovative measures to recruit more nurses, we are seeing improvements and we are keen to build on that progress in years to come."

He said a survey was carried out to find out what attracts nurses to the profession and what keeps them there.

Answers included career development opportunities, being able to offer a high quality of care and promotion prospects.

Trust bosses have forged links with careers teachers to raise the profile of nursing as a career.

And they are supporting the national 'Return to Nursing' initiative to encourage nurses who have left the profession back to work.

The spokesman said: "We do recognise that there are certain areas such as elderly care where we do face some problems.

"We will have to look very carefully at putting together a targeted recruitment campaign to attract more nurses into those particular highly specialised areas."

A few years ago the trust recruited about ten nurses from Finland but none have been recruited from abroad since then.

Last month the Telegraph & Argus revealed that a higher than average number of staff were quitting Bradford Community Health NHS Trust - which provides community, mental health and learning disability services.

The trust's director of personnel and development Rachel Allsop said they had about 50 staff vacancies and had a particular problem recruiting mental health nurses.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.