YouGov Poll Reveals Quality of Care Compromised by Time Constraints
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- Published: Monday, 31 July 2023 10:13
- Written by Guy Tuggle
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One of the reasons politicians quit being MPs is in order ’to spend more time with their families’. Or so they tell us. Dentists quitting the NHS to work privately also cite ’time’ as a reason. Not ’more time to spend with their families’, their actions are more likely to be motivated by a desire to ’spend more time with their patients’.
Seeing 25 - 35 patients a day - a default setting for many dentists chasing down UDA targets - exposes them to a ’conveyor belt’ style of delivery.
Necessarily short appointment times, coupled with a requirement to then write comprehensive notes, threatens the quality of work leading in turn to stress and fear of repercussions.
As so often is the case with systemic / contractual shortcomings, it’s not just the health of the provider that suffers but the quality of treatment the provider can deliver.
Now a survey by YouGov commissioned by The Guardian has revealed that ’71% of NHS staff who have direct contact with patients do not enjoy ’the amount of time they would like to have to help them.’
Just under a quarter - 23% - of respondents felt they did have the right amount of time.
The polling asked Drs, nurses and other staff who have in excess of five years of patient facing experience whether they felt the time they were able to spend with their patients had improved or worsened since 2018. 74% replied ’worse.’
75% of professionals said time constraints meant that the quality of care had worsened although when asked about the quality in their own workplace, this figure reduced to 56% with 12% stating it had improved.
Nicola Ranger, Chief Nursing Officer at The Royal College of Nursing said "That more than seven in ten NHS staff feel they have less time than they would like to have to help patients is very worrying. It means the quality of care patients are receiving is suffering."
Dentistry, whilst not specifically mentioned in the YouGov poll, shares many or all of the poll’s wider findings.
The BMA’s deputy chair of council, DrEmma Runswick - in words that could easily have originated from the offices of the BDA - said "many doctors feel ’moral distress’ because we cannot give patients the care and support we want to, with insufficient staffing, a lack of time and mental fatigue all major contributing factors."
And Dr Jeanette Dickson, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said the NHS was under greater strain than at any time in its 75 years history because of the Covid-19 pandemic and "years of underfunding by successive governments" which has left it short staffed.
The YouGov survey was carried out in June. 1058 NHS staff across the UK took part including ambulance workers, midwives, doctors and nurses working in hospitals, health centres and other settings.
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