Many agency nurses, who are an essential function of the NHS, are often treated as “second class citizens” – something that needs to change to ensure maximum standards of care. That’s the message from specialist healthcare recruiter Arrows Group.
One agency nurse, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that there is a lot of hostility towards temporary nursing staff, that they’re given the most difficult patient and offered no support. She says, “We’re not treated like nurses – I’ve often been referred to as ‘agency nurse’ rather than by my name. Some hospitals don’t allow us to administer drugs, which I can often understand, but when that’s the case they should offer us the training to do so. We’re always willing to pay, but many won’t even offer us the option.”
“There’s hostility because NHS nurses know we get paid more than them” says another. “And if there are tasks we’re not permitted to do, that can mean more work for them. But that’s not our fault, and if they would work with us as a team then there wouldn’t be a problem. Permanent nurses always ask me what I’m earning, and if there’s a piece of equipment I’m not familiar with, I’ve been told ‘you’re paid a lot of money, you should know how to use it’. One nurse refused to show me how to use a new piece of machinery which everyone had been trained on whilst I was on holiday. This meant I couldn’t change a patient’s IV – I had to spend half an hour finding another nurse and take her away from her work so she could show me. Obviously not all wards in all hospitals are like this but it just shows that this treatment has a direct and negative impact on patient care.”
“The truth is that the NHS couldn’t function without the input of these specialist nurses,” comments James Parsons, Managing Director of Arrows Group, which supplies temporary nurses to trusts across the country. “These people are highly qualified and deserve to be treated like any other nurse – and common courtesy is something that every employee is entitled to. The focus of healthcare staff should always be on patient care but it seems this is suffering due to these hostile attitudes.”
