Medisister Canvases Nurses On NHS Staffing

April 11, 2012 - PRLog -- As its Hot Topic for April, the Medisister website for nursing professionals is asking nurses for their views on whether staffing levels in the NHS are causing issues in patient care. Medisister points to the fact that warnings about cuts in jobs and services from the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) and other bodies have been recently countered by government claims that “more clinical staff were working in the NHS than ever before” (see www.publicservice.co.uk).

This was supported by a health service workforce report from the NHS ICHSC (NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care) showing that the fall in staffing levels was mainly in non-clinical and managerial posts. The NHS ICHSC spokesperson claimed that most categories of professionally qualified clinical staff saw increases in their numbers and although nurses saw a small decline, their numbers were still up on 10 years ago.

Medisister is therefore asking nurses the following specific questions:

•   Are there enough qualified nurses allocated to patients with enough time to dedicate to their care?
•   Do specific categories of patient such as the elderly have sufficient staff to attend to their special needs?
•   Has the decrease in managerial staff been a positive step, with resources redirected to the front line, or has is made for more bureaucracy and administration for nurses?


As well as frequently seeking input from nurses on issues of patient care and treatment of health conditions, Medisister offers a range of ideas for nurses on work, leisure and lifestyle. The objectives of Medisister are to:

•   Help, motivate and reward nurses
•   Make the difficult jobs that nurses have to do easier to perform
•   Provide nurses with a new channel to communicate their views and experience

Provided by MedIsis, a major source of information and resources for the nursing profession, www.medisister.com offers wide ranging practical help and the means to keep in touch socially and swap ideas.

The ‘Hot Topic’ is one of the features of the Medisister site and the theme changes every month.  A varied range of Hot Topics has been scheduled over the coming months, but Medisister is always flexible in changing its programme to reflect news and developments in the healthcare sector.