NURSING SHORTAGES

Nursing Shortages



Introduction1

Nursing Shortages in current context2

Professional Practices and Nursing Shortages4

The Role of Policy Drivers in current context of Nuring shortages and practices of nurses6

Exploiting the practices Reflection and Reflective in context of shortages10

The major Issues of Nursing Shortages influencing professional health care practices11

References12

Nursing Shortages

Introduction

The nursing shortages refer to the issues in health care settings due to the existence of inadequate number of nurses as compared to the demand or need. According to my perspective, the gaps of nursing shortages should be managed country-level and organisational level policy as the country and organisation may vary in their resources and needs of health care with respect to particular skills in professionals. The international organisations also describe the provisions for estimating, planning, and developing settings to address the issues of shortages. A nursing shortage may occur due to an imbalance between the required number of nurses with skills and the nurses actual available. Availability does not specify the number of personnel willing to work in specific organisation, on specified wage and package or benefits (Buchan, 2006, p. n. d).

However in an economic model a nursing shortage is not merely a game of numbers but, it is related to collective and individual choices and decision. The nursing shortage would not essentially an individual's shortage but, the shortage of qualified nurses or shortage willing for working in the current conditions. The research for finding solutions of nursing shortages focus on motivating the nursing professionals, and appropriate incentives for retaining and recruiting, and encouraging people for the nursing profession, and maintaining the broader frameworks of planning for supply with respect to demand. It has been a cyclical phenomenon in few countries in the past decades; because of the increases in demand outstripping static and slow growth of supplying the nursing professionals (Friss ,1994; Goodin ,2003, p. n. d). However, the current situation may be more serious.

Nursing Shortages in current context

Currently, the nursing professionals are facing concerns related to shortages due to care quality requirements, recruitment concerns for nursing shortages, safety concerns of public concerns and cost-containment measures. Current researches points out the significant impact of nurse staffing and the number of nursing professional on the specific adverse events, especially for the patients in surgical units, intensive care units, and for the patients suffering from urinary tract infections, pressure ulcers blood stream infections, medication errors, Hospital acquired infections, and pneumonia. In all these cases poorer staffing and lack of adequate number of nursing professional can result in more severe health conditions in patients and even death. There are more patients and limited nursing professional so at the time when there are shortages, nurses spend fewer hours of caring with individual patient (NHS, 2012, p. 7).

The practices in individual organisation may also influence the nursing shortages as it depends on the changes in staffing and use of different care delivery models in different hospitals. Few studies also predict the other variables such as individual experience of nurses, processes of care in organizations, working environment, communicating abilities, ...