A BBC investigation has found that patients are being “put at risk” by healthcare assistants who are working without sufficient training or supervision.
Although Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said previously that training for healthcare assistants was at its highest ever level, the BBC spoke to 32 care assistants working at 19 hospitals in the East of England, South West, London, West and East Midlands and found that healthcare assistants were frequently asked to “act up” to designated doctor and nurse roles.
hospital support workers said they had been left to cope alone with wards containing up to 40 patients, and junior staff had been asked to insert IV drips and take blood samples from patients.
Guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) state that healthcare assistants should work under professional supervision.
Karen Webb, regional director of the Royal College of Nursing in the East, said there is “a woeful lack” of qualified nurses in some hospitals meaning healthcare assistants were being put in positions where they “feel they need to do work they are not educated to do”.
Fiona Tinsley, Head of Clinical Negligence at Clear Law, said “The findings of this investigation are incredibly worrying. Healthcare assistants with insufficient training are being placed in high-risk situations where the safety of patients could easily be compromised.
“Based on the results of this investigation it is unnerving to think of current practice in areas not looked into by this study, such as those in the North of England, which could further escalate the problem. These issues need to be addressed without delay before they result in patients suffering serious harm.”
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