The expertise of frontline nurses must not be lost during reforms to the NHS, a nurse leader has warned.
Professor Nicola Ranger was amongst senior health figures invited by the committee to discuss the upcoming abolition of NHSE and associated healthcare reforms.
‘Every nurse at the moment counts in the UK, we don’t want to lose that expertise,’ she said.
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The general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) cautioned that the changes to NHSE must deliver real change for staff and patients.
‘What we can’t do is have a big reorganisation that then never gets anything better for staffing patients so and that is the difficulty,’ she said.
She later added: ‘We know from experience, big organisations can be distraction from the fundamental things, and that cannot happen, particularly at ICB level.’
She told the health and social care committee yesterday that the axing of NHSE was an ‘understandable’ decision that would bring accountability ‘back up to government’.
When the announcement to scrap NHSE was made earlier this month, Professor Ranger said the NHS had previously allowed government to ‘put distance’ between itself and the problems of the health service.
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Spending cuts and nursing roles
Professor Ranger commented that she was ‘genuinely worried’ about spending cuts across the NHS and at integrated care board (ICB) level.
She said: ‘It isn’t just NHS England and ICBs being asked to make savings. It’s coming to providers as well. And I know posts are being [looked] at to take frontline nursing out.’
She explained how she felt that ‘central grip and focus’ was needed from government before focusing on any local reforms to ICBs or NHS providers.
‘There is a danger that it all gets changed a bit too quickly. I think there’s got to be connectivity between local and central to get this right,’ Professor Ranger said.
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The nursing leader also spoke of the ‘real challenge’ facing nursing recruitment and retention across the UK.
