A&E Agency Nurses Under Pressure

Nursing Personnel has seen the demand for A&E agency nurses increase substantially.

The recent heat wave has seen a huge surge in the number of patients attending the A&E department in NHS hospitals across the UK. Recent reports have highlighted that a total number of 2,176,022 people attended the A&E departments in July, which is the highest number since records began.

The massive surge in patients attending also had a negative impact on patient waiting times. In July only 89.3% of patients were seen within four hours. The NHS target is all patients are to be seen within 4 hours. This target has not been met since July 2015.

To put this into context there were 41,553 instances of delays of four hours or more. This is up on 4,000 for the same period last year. There were also 147 instances where patients had to wait more than 12 hours to be seen in July. One Trust reported in early August an average of 435 patients attending per day. This was up 11% on the previous year.

Many issues were a direct result of the heat. Other factors included dehydration (from not drinking enough water), heat stroke, exhaustion, and breathing problems. Kings Hospital in London reported that at 10.00 pm on the 31^st of July there was a queue of ambulances outside the accident and emergency. This would normally be seen in the middle of February as a result of winter pressures. Paramedics in some instances set up drips and looked after patients on trolleys in the corridors of one of London’s busiest hospitals. In the midlands and the north of the UK they also experienced a huge increase in patients attending the A&E departments. GP surgeries also reported record levels of patients attending surgeries as a result of the very hot weather.

A&E Agency Nurse Demand Surges

Nursing Personnel can also confirm we have seen a huge increase in demand for agency nurses in the A&E departments across the UK for July and August. This is consistent with hospitals being under huge pressure to staff A&E wards with nurses as a result of the increase in patients attending the A&E departments.

With over 33,000 unfilled nursing jobs across the UK, it is inevitable that many of the vacant nurse jobs will be in the A&E departments. Nursing Personnel are actively recruiting agency nurses to help cover the demand for NHS agency A&E nurse jobs. Nursing Personnel are receiving hundreds of requirements daily across the UK for A&E nurse jobs. Such is the pressure and demand some hospitals are offering exceptional agency nurse pay rates as the hospitals have to have appropriate staffing levels to meet patient care standards and patient safety. To attract nurses to our nursing agency Nursing Personnel are offering a registration bonus of £500 for a limited time only. For more information on our agency nurse bonus click here including full terms and conditions.

Agency Nurses Contact Us

If you are an agency nurse looking for agency nurse jobs in A&E please contact us as we have an abundance of work across the UK. For more information please call us on 033 3043 6779 or to register click here.