• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

News and entertainment worth sharing – York and North Yorkshire

  • News
  • Radio
  • Vouchers
  • WIN
  • More
    • Tickets
    • Lifestyle
    • Advertise
    • About
    • Contact

Hospitals struggle to feed patients as they face ‘worst ever pressure’

Wed 30 Mar

York Hospital. Photograph: YorkMix

Wed 30 Mar 2022  @ 9:33pm
Joe Cooper - Local Democracy Reporter
News

The “fundamental basics” of care at York and Scarborough hospitals are being hit by a lack of nurses and healthcare support staff.

An increase in patient falls, pressure ulcers and patients not being fed properly are the result of staff shortages at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, a meeting of the board of directors heard.

The trust is under severe strain, with nearly 300 Covid patients – a record high – and hospitals unable to discharge patients who are well back into the community because there is nowhere for them to go.

Around a quarter of the general and acute beds in the trust’s hospitals are now occupied by people with Covid-19.

Meanwhile, the trust is struggling to attract agency and bank staff to do shifts due to exhaustion.

There is also a high attrition rate among healthcare support staff, with many unprepared for the realities of life on the wards and staff leaving to work in the leisure and retail sectors.

Asked by a fellow director if nurse staffing levels were safe, chief nurse Heather McNair said: “I think we are spread very thinly. We are running some of our big wards – 28-30 beds – on two RNs (registered nurses) on a night, which is a stretch. 

“Is it safe? It’s as safe as we can make it.”

The male director asked her: “Are they safe enough?”

Ms McNair replied: “I think they’re safe enough. Are we doing critical things – medicines, turns etc – I think we are. 

“Where I think we are probably not achieving optimum care would be feeding patients, answering buzzers in a timely way – the stuff that HCAs (healthcare assistants) on the whole would be doing.” 

The director said: “You’re not happy that we’re able to deliver nutrition needs to all of our patients?”

“No, not regularly, on every meal time on every shift,” Ms McNair said.

The director replied: “That doesn’t sound safe to me.”

Ms McNair said there was “a clear correlation where suboptimal staffing levels are resulting in patient harm”.

‘People want a rest’

York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Simon Morritt. Photograph: York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust / Twitter

Incentives to get more staff onto shifts were not working because “people don’t want money  – they want a rest,” Ms McNair added.

In his update, chief executive Simon Morritt said: “It genuinely is the worst it’s ever been in terms of the pressures that we’re under. 

[tptn_list limit=3 daily=1 hour_range=1]

“The patients who are coming into our hospitals, the beds that we have closed – around 150 in York and 50 in Scarborough – and we have a sizeable number of acute delays.” 

On delays in discharging patients, he said: “The response from our partner local authorities is that they’re in exactly the same position that we are – that they don’t have the packages of care. 

“We continue to push… there isn’t a significant amount of capacity out there in the system.

“There is not a silver bullet in the short term.”


Trending »


Primary Sidebar

Footer

Contact us

General
01904 375 029

Studio/competitions
01904 375 030

Email YorkMix »

5-6 King's Court
Shambles
York  YO1 7LD

Listen to us

You can listen to YorkMix Radio using your DAB+ radio, Alexa or Google smart speaker, or online using the links below.

Click here to listen to YorkMix Radio »

Download the app from Google Play store
Download the app from Apple App store
About us

YorkMix is a trading name of
York Sound Ltd

Registered in England
Company no: 12831940
VAT no: GB289462452

YorkMix Radio public file

  • About
  • Public file
  • Privacy policy
  • Corrections & complaints
  • Contact

Copyright © 2025 YorkMix