Trust suggests that specialist nurses should help clean wards

10th of August 2022
Trust suggests that specialist nurses should help clean wards

Proposals in the UK to ask specialist nurses to help clean ward areas and sluice rooms have earned criticism from healthcare workers.

The scheme was mooted at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital to help ease mounting pressures. A document was circulated proposing that specialist nursing teams release staff for hours at a time or for a whole shift to sanitise high touch points such as door handles and light switches or to help clean wards, sluice rooms and storage rooms.

A copy of the proposals, which has not been implemented, was flagged by Professor Alison Leary, chair of healthcare and workforce modelling at London South Bank University. She claimed the scheme showed "very little respect for nursing" and would not help with staff retention.

"Specialist nurses are usually complex case holders and key to keeping people out of hospital," she said. "Assuming they can simply drop their work without any effect on patients or the organisation is a very risky one."

A spokesperson for Bedfordshire Hospitals Foundation Trust said: "As an organisation we do appreciate and value the important contribution that our dedicated nursing workforce - including our clinical nursing specialists team - makes in delivering quality patient care.

"As a result of the pressures we are currently experiencing, a discussion took place with senior medical, nursing and management leads to consider how we might ensure our ward teams could be given additional help during some of the most challenging circumstances we have ever faced.

"Fortunately, the actions detailed have not been necessary, and would only ever be considered where every option had been exhausted and following a wider conversation with those affected."

 

 

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