Almost five years since the Act was passed by MSPs, we continue to see persistently high nursing vacancy rates, increased reliance on supplementary staffing and alarming numbers of nurses leaving the profession.
You, our members, have told us that unacceptable and unsafe working conditions are being normalised, nursing staff are burnt out, and the impact of not being able to provide the level of care you want is taking a serious toll.
Our last shift survey is your opportunity to share your most recent experiences and provide us with the evidence to challenge the Scottish government. We will use it to push for the action to tackle Scotland’s nursing workforce crisis that has so far been much slower than needed, given the scale and severity of the situation.
The implementation of this long-awaited legislation, along with other vital initiatives such as the Ministerial Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce, offers hope for the future.
The Act does not place any duties on frontline members of health and care staff. Rather it gives nursing staff additional rights and expectations and it's important that you are aware of these.
As well as placing a new legal duty on NHS and care providers to make sure there are always suitably qualified staff working in the right numbers for safe and effective care, the Act requires NHS boards to seek clinical advice when making staffing decisions and to improve reporting and escalation processes for concerns. This means that if you raise a concern about unsafe staffing levels, you can expect – under the new law – to be listened to, for your concerns to be acted on, and to receive feedback to tell you what has been done to improve staffing levels in response to your concerns. The Act also requires boards to ensure clinical leaders have the time they need to perform their leadership role and to ensure staff have the time and resources for training.
We know that the new legislation will not immediately address the current acute staff shortages, but it does create new duties that we expect should make a difference to staff and to patients.
The Act also imposes a new duty on the Scottish government to ensure enough registered nurses are available to enable health boards to comply with their safe staffing duties. We believe this is an important provision, which will put pressure on the Scottish government to improve workforce planning for the future.
We are clear that legislation will only make a long-term positive difference if services have the nursing establishment they need. It must be accompanied by increased investment in services to enable providers to tackle vacancies and recruit and retain the workforce that Scotland needs.
Given the key role of RCN members in reaching this stage, we should celebrate the implementation of this important legislation. 1 April marks an important milestone in our journey – we now move on to the next chapter in our fight for staffing for safe and effective care.
- Complete our survey and let us know wow were staffing levels on your last shift. Your responses will help us continue the fight for better staffing levels and patient care.
- Unsure of how Scotland’s safe staffing legislation will impact you? Read our FAQs to find the answers to your questions
