Massive rise in job insecurity amongst Scottish nurses

Less than a third of Scottish nurses feel that the profession offers a secure job, according to a survey by the Royal College of Nursing.

The RCN surveyed 700 nurses and healthcare support workers, and found that only 30% believe nursing is a secure profession, down from 82% in 2009. Other results showed that 38% would recommend nursing as a career, and almost 75% believed stress had increased at work.

With continued cuts, prolonged pay freezes and planned pension increases, it was “no surprise” that morale had dropped, said director of RCN Scotland, Theresa Fyffe. She called for action to be taken in order to protect standards in patient care.

Fyffe said: “The survey's findings should fire a warning shot across the bows, for the Scottish Government and NHS managers alike. Our nursing workforce is at breaking point and the tactic of cutting posts in an uncoordinated manner is simply not working.

“We need a vision for our NHS which sets out how services can be delivered more efficiently without placing an unacceptable burden on nursing staff, the very backbone of health services in Scotland.

“We have now committed to maintaining our policy of no compulsory redundancies for a further year, precisely to give workers, like nurses, who do difficult and stressful jobs, the job security that they deserve.”