[lettie]

Many targets and government initiatives require extra money. In order to meet the government requirements experienced nurses and midwives are often taken from frontline work to help set up new services, but they are not replaced. This leaves wards and departments very short staffed. Usually the money to provide new services is nowhere near enough and most hospitals are running on very tight budgets. This government are patting themselves on the back, saying that they have provided so many thousands of extra nurses. Those numbers of registered nurses in this country are very misleading. They include nurses who are still on the register but retired or recently emigrated. They also do not differentiate between who is full time and who is part time. The majority of my colleagues are part time and it is extremely difficult to cover shifts when 5 out of 7 people in your team are only working 20 hours a week....