Unison calls off strike after Welsh Government improves its pay offer

A strike over pay by nurses and other healthcare workers in Wales has been called off after the Welsh Government offered to give NHS staff a 1 per cent consolidated pay rise next year.

Source country perceptions, experiences, and recommendations regarding health workforce migration: a case study from the Philippines

BACKGROUND

The Philippines continues to overproduce nurses for export. Little first-hand evidence exists from leading organisations in the Philippines concerning their experiences and perceptions in relation to Filipino nurse migration. What are their views about health workforce migration? This paper addresses this research gap by providing a source country perspective on Filipino nurse migration to Australia.

METHODS

Focus-group interviews were conducted with key informants from nine Filipino organisations in the Philippines by an Australian-Filipino research team. The organisations were purposively selected and contacted in person, by phone, and/or email. Qualitative thematic analysis was performed using a coding framework.

RESULTS

Health workforce migration is perceived to have both positive and negative consequences. On the one hand, emigration offers a welcome opportunity for individual Filipino nurses to migrate abroad in order to achieve economic, professional, lifestyle, and social benefits. On the other, as senior and experienced nurses are attracted overseas, this results in the maldistribution of health workers particularly affecting rural health outcomes for people in developing countries. Problems such as 'volunteerism' also emerged in our study.

CONCLUSIONS

In the context of the WHO (2010) Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel it is to be hoped that, in the future, government recruiters, managers, and nursing leaders can utilise these insights in designing recruitment, orientation, and support programmes for migrant nurses that are more sensitive to the experience of the Philippines' education and health sectors and their needs.

Ensuring the availability of the nursing workforce through philanthropy: a case study

The Institute of Medicine report on the Future of Nursing identified the need to increase the preparation of nurses, create pathways for nurses to lead as partners to improve health by promoting interprofessional education and practice, and to remove barriers to full practice of nurses across the continuum. This case study shares the experience of large systems and their creativity using philanthropy in their quest to ensure the availability of a qualified nursing workforce.

Our research shows clear signs of an autumn of NHS discontent

Overstretched, underpaid and ready to take action over pay.

NHS staff join in the People's March

Nurses joined the People's March for the NHS, following the same route as the Jarrow marchers of 1936.

Staff battle to make ends meet

Some nurses are resorting to selling their possessions and taking payday loans as they struggle to survive on their salaries, our poll reveals.

Parking crusade wins concessions for shift workers

New Department of Health (DH) guidance says nurses who work shifts that mean they cannot use public transport should be given free or reduced car parking by their employer.

Nurse Credentials: What Is the Economic Value?

A workshop sponsored by the Institute of Medicine brought together health care leaders to focus on the impact of credentials on nurse, patient, and organization outcomes. Demonstrating the value of credentials is very challenging. Does the credential cause improvement? Or does it simply indicate which organizations are the better performers (and thus does not cause improvement)? As our health care system moves toward rewarding the value of health care, proponents of credentials will need to demonstrate credentials reflect true differences in the capacity to deliver health care. Credentialing is expensive; thus, it is imperative to critically assess the overall value of credentials, whether some credentials are more important than others, and how to support attainment of the most important credentials.

Preparedness for epidemic disease or bioterrorism: minimum cost planning for the location and staffing of urban point-of-dispensing centers

Urban health authorities in the United States have been charged with developing plans for providing the infrastructure necessary to dispense prophylactic medications to their populations in the case of epidemic disease outbreak or bioterrorist attack. However, no specific method for such plans has been prescribed. This article formulates and demonstrates the use of an integer programming technique for helping to solve a part of the dispensing problem faced by cities, namely that of providing the federally required infrastructure at minimum cost, using their limited time and resources. Specifically, the technique minimizes the number of point-of-dispensing (POD) centers while covering every resident in all the census tracts within the city's jurisdiction. It also determines the optimal staffing requirement in terms of the number of nurses at each POD. This article includes a demonstration of the model using real data from Cleveland, OH, a mid-sized US city. Examples are provided of data and computational results for a variety of input parameter values such as population throughput rate, POD capacities, and distance limitations. The technique can be readily adapted to a wide range of urban areas.

RCN faces challenges over rising inequalities within profession

It is difficult to understand why the RCN will not join colleagues in the Royal College of Midwives and other health unions in balloting members on industrial action (Editorial and News July 30). Is the RCN fearful of the outcome should the response be a yes?

Continuation of NHS Pay Review body benefits all

The prospect of yet another year in which most nurses' standard of living will fall because the English government is too mean to fund a pay rise could hardly be more depressing. Last week's announcement by the Treasury that nurses will not receive a cost-of-living pay award next year - only a 1 per cent one-off payment if they are at the top of their pay band - demonstrates the lack of respect ministers have for the profession.

Nurses in the front line of cuts at HEE

Nearly one third of senior Health Education England (HEE) posts that will be axed to reduce costs are held by nurses, Nursing Standard has learned.