Dagenham And Rainham MP Highlights Nurse Shortages At Queen’s And King George Hospital.

‘The nurse shortage across all wards at Queen’s and King George were 8% and 5% respectively. But within the totals there were some alarming gaps for specialist nurses.’

Research by Channel4 involving a Freedom of Information request to the NHS has revealed that nationally hospitals across England have nurse staffing vacancies of 10% of planned numbers. This was for the period from January 2023 to November 2024.

There is a potential shortfall of 10,000 nurses and midwives between how many staff hospitals had planned for and the actual numbers on the wards.

Dagenham and Rainham Labour MP, Margaret Mullane, dug down into the numbers to find out what this meant for Queen’s and King George Hospitals. 

Margaret told the Havering Daily: “The nurse shortage across all wards at Queen’s and King George were 8% and 5% respectively. But within the totals there were some alarming gaps for specialist nurses. At Queen’s there were nursing shortages of 25% in neonatal and 7% in critical care with 16% in maternity. At King George Hospital was short of 17% of its nursing complement in critical care.

This yet another indictment of the last Conservative Government This data on the chronic shortfall of nursing staff had been collected by government but had been hidden from public view for six years.”

Margaret added: “It now falls to the Labour Government to be put this right, though this task will not be easy and will not happen overnight. The Government is to introduce a workforce plan in the summer following on from the ten year health plan to be announced in the next few weeks.

I believe it is crucial that these plans have at their heart a build up of the community nursing workforce, health visitors and district nurses, services that have been literally decimated in the last decade.”

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