Call For Better Investment in Senior Nurses

Senior nurses need to be invested in, before Holyrood considers increasing the number of NHS services available 7 days a week.

That's the call from the Royal College of Nurses, who're concerned MSPs are rushing into the decision without considering issues like staffing. Advanced Nurse Practicioners are decision-makers who bridge a gap between nurses and doctors. ANPs, for example, work across organisational boundaries and often lead multidisciplinary teams, providing their expert knowledge and advice and, most importantly, direct patient contact. They have an overall view of the patient and meet their health care needs, delivering good patient outcomes and experiences.  The RCN says they will be key in making 7-day care work. 

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland Director, Theresa Fyffe, said: 

"Last year, we published 'The nursing contribution to seven day care', which sets out a series of nursing solutions and the contribution that nurses can - and should - make to achieve the Scottish Government’s ambitions around the provision of seven day care.  As the biggest single workforce in the NHS, nurses are crucial to the successful delivery of seven-day care, particularly senior decision-making nurses such as senior charge nurses, specialist nurses and advanced nurse practitioners.

"There are many examples of how nursing has successfully taken on new or expanded roles across acute and community services, in response to pressures on the system or to improve patient care and ANPs are at the ‘cutting edge’ of this, often challenging the status quo and offering creative solutions to traditional ways of working across professions.  We know the Chief Nursing Officer for Scotland is about to start a review of advance nurse practice and we’ll shortly be publishing a number of Nursing Innovation case studies, showing the invaluable work that ANPs do and the contribution they make."