Let nurses put their pens away and focus on patient care

Nursing must be about patient care, not paperwork, says Jane McCready.

FOR many people in today's world, forms and paperwork are a fact of life, albeit an often annoying and irritating one. However, a UK-wide survey of nurses found that an over-abundance of administrative tasks are more than an inconvenience. Paperwork is drastically interfering with patient care.

Some paperwork is obviously essential, such as admission details, care/treatment plans and case notes, all of which are fundamental to the patient experience.

However, nurses' time is increasingly being consumed with additional paperwork like claim forms, off-duty forms and funding requests. These non-essential tasks should be carried out by administrative staff, freeing nurses to get on with the job of delivering high quality patient care.

A survey by the Royal College of Nursing found that almost two-fifths of nurses questioned (38 per cent) had no access to administrative support, despite the majority (87 per cent) firmly believing that help would mean they could spend more time caring for patients.

The results clearly show the worrying trend that nurses are feeling overburdened by paperwork, and this is impacting on the time they can devote to caring for patients and supporting relatives – the real priority of nursing. The vast majority of nurses taking part in the survey felt non-essential paperwork had increased over the past five years. Yet for many, clerical support was either non-existent or had not kept pace with demand.

Those who did have administrative support had, on average, less than three hours direct help every week.

Not being able to deliver high quality patient care is impacting directly on nurses. A related study of RCN members found that eight out of ten nurses said they finished shifts feeling upset or distressed because they had not been able to ensure their patients had been treated with appropriate dignity, with paperwork levels cited as a major factor.

Nurses desperately want to give patients the high quality, personalised and dignified care they deserve – but many simply do not have the time and resources to do so.

The Scottish Government's recent senior charge nurse review supports the need to reduce the administrative burden on nurses so they can devote more time to patient care.

The review recognises that the senior charge nurse role must be underpinned by a strong clinical leadership model to improve care at the bedside.

RCN Scotland is supportive of the Government's review and will be working in partnership with it over the next two years, while the role of SCN is implemented, to ensure that this message is clearly heard and that frontline nurses get the appropriate administrative help they need.

• Jane McCready is chair of the RCN Scotland Board