Showing posts tagged with: Nurse

Calling Nurses and Healthcare Assistants in around Blackpool and Preston

We have a number of new job vacancies this week for Nurses throughout the north of England, including Nurse Jobs in Preston, Garstang and Chorley areas and Healthcare Assistant Jobs in Blackpool, Poulton, Fleetwood, Cleveleys and Lytham areas.

For more details about these jobs and information on how to apply, please go to our Vacancies page.

The consequences of a busy day

Cast your mind back to 27 February. It was a Monday morning. The weather was pretty mild for the end of winter.

The day before Liverpool had won the Carling Cup football final, while the Sun on Sunday had just been launched.

For the NHS, it was to be the busiest day of the year.

The bed occupancy rate nationally was 92% - seven percentage points above the recognised safe level - according to an analysis by monitoring body Dr Foster.

Nearly half of the 145 trusts in England reported a bed occupancy rate of 95% or above.

There is nothing to suggest anything specific went wrong that day.

But what is certain is that staff working on the wards of hospitals up and down the country would have been struggling to keep up.

Quality of care

When bed occupancy tips the 85% mark the system goes into overdrive - and things start to give.

They may have to wait that little bit longer before their call bell is answered. There may not be enough staff to help the frail at meal times.

Discharge planning can go awry as hospitals become desperate to free up beds. That can mean they turf people out before they are ready or before the support in the community from district nursing teams and social care is in place.

Because of the shortage of beds, patients can find themselves moved around from ward to ward, inevitably finding themselves in unsuitable surroundings.

On their own, these things seem relatively minor, but added together they create the sort of care that leaves people feeling aggrieved and which, at its worse, is unsafe.

For the full article click here.

How to beat a cold in just 24 hours

When the dreaded  lurgy strikes, a day in bed can seem like the only option. But with Christmas just  around the corner, few of us have the time - or inclination - to put up with a  hacking cough or aching muscles for long.

Now, help is at  hand from a leading expert. Here, Professor Ron Eccles from the Common Cold  Centre at Cardiff University tells MailOnline how to beat the bug in just one  day...

To read the full article click here.

Winter bug cases '83% up on 2011'

Latest figures show there has been an increase in cases of norovirus - often known as the winter vomiting bug.

The Health Protection Agency estimates there have been about 880,000 cases in England and Wales since the summer, 83% more than in the same period last year.

There have been just over 3,000 lab-confirmed cases.

But the HPA says these reported cases are the tip of the iceberg and for each one, there will be around 288 that go unreported.

To read the full article click here.

Wards dangerously understaffed, say nurses in survey

More than half of nurses believe their NHS ward or unit is dangerously understaffed, according to a survey.

The Nursing Times conducted an online poll of nearly 600 of its readers on issues such as staffing, patient safety and NHS culture.

Three-quarters had witnessed what they considered "poor" care over the past 12 months, the survey found.

The government said it had increased staffing and hundreds of new nurses were still being taken on by the NHS.

To read the full article, click here.