Editorial

Words are hot air when patient safety is the issue
Nurses know it, their more enlightened leaders admit it and patients are in no doubt about it: the number of nurses on duty has a direct effect on the quality of care provided. Yet employers, the government and even some senior nurses seem to believe the NHS can muddle on without setting mandatory staffing levels in our hospitals.

Leadership training is better late than never
At last there has been a positive development as the NHS seeks to learn lessons from the care scandal at Stafford Hospital. Thousands of nurses, doctors, allied healthcare professionals and support staff are set to benefit from leadership development programmes.

Hunt’s dreamed-up policy has no place in reality
A&E departments are a fair barometer of NHS performance. They are invariably busy, but staff in units at well-run hospitals, that are complemented by efficient community care and social services, can generally cope with anything that is thrown at them.

Shame on ministers for not budging on staffing
The NHS spends millions of pounds a year on expensive management consultants, and invariably acts on the advice it receives. But the views expressed by the best judges of health service performance - the patients who use it - are often ignored.

Promoting compassion starts from the top
Compassion - or the lack of it - was an enduring theme running through the Francis inquiry. In fact the word crops up more than 30 times in the final report. One relative described a ward cleaner, who helped her father by finding him pillows and a fan when he was hot, as having 'more compassion in her little finger' than the rest of the staff put together.

Action needed to boost health visitor workforce
When a government report uses words such as 'disappointing' and talks about targets being 'off trajectory', you can be sure that, though they are putting a brave face on it, things have gone a bit pear shaped.

This post-Francis vision is blurred and misguided
Of all the problems that arose at Stafford Hospital, it is unlikely that the educational preparation of its registered nurses was the cause. It would be absurd to attribute the deaths of hundreds of patients to newly qualified nurses' ability or otherwise to show compassion, and Robert Francis made it clear in both his reports that responsibility rested more with managers than professionals.

Callous chancellor must stop picking on nurses
Such has been the battering that nurses have taken in recent months, it can be difficult to raise the issue of pay. The economic climate does not help, because those in work often feel grateful to have a job at all. NHS Employers director Dean Royles is forever issuing reminders that this year's 1 per cent pay award will cost the equivalent of 15,000 nurses.

Freezing pay is no way to make efficiency savings
One per cent of not very much is, of course, not very much, but it is the only pay rise nurses and other NHS staff were expecting this year. Last week the pay review body (RB) fell into line with chancellor George Osborne's public sector pay policy and all the UK governments accepted its recommendation of 1 per cent across the board, from band 1 to band 9.

A good time to focus on the profession’s finest
The winners of Nursing Standard's annual awards are always a source of inspiration, and this year's are no different. Individually and collectively they represent the best of what modern nursing is all about.