A day in the life of an NHS nurse - how our government is failing both patients and nurses

Last year 33,000 nurses left the NHS, 3,000 more than were recruited. There’s a simple solution - resisted by a government determined to press ahead with piecemeal privatisation.

By Mark Boothroyd

Published: January 24, 2018, 12:01 pm

If you take a look at the average daily workload of an NHS nurse, you can see how it would drive any but the most committed to leave the underpaid and undervalued profession.

Average staffing levels in NHS wards means that there are 9 patients per nurse. In elderly care wards the average is 11 patients per nurse. The reality for nurses is it can be as much as 10 or 12 patients per nurse on a medical ward, and 14 to 16 patients per nurse on an elderly ward. The National Institute of Clinical Excellent (NICE) and nursing unions recommend no more than 8 patients per nurse, yet 40% of NHS nurses reported to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) that they are working with ratios higher than this.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. If you have any queries about republishing please contact us. Please check individual images for licensing details.