Annex 2
Do we have evidence that specialist nurses are
being targeted for redundancies? and/or that they are doing generalised
work rather than specialist work?
2.1 In the first half of the financial year,
there were 135 nurse redundancies (15%) of the total compulsory
redundancies in the NHS. We do not collect a more detailed breakdown
since the title specialist nurse covers a number of roles, titles
and bands. There are the NMC registered specialist practitioner
roles such as Health Visitors, School Nurses, and Learning Disability
Nurses, and there are specialist roles, such as cancer or MS nurses,
where significant post registration training is required and not
all are readily identifiable in standard workforce collections.
2.2 It is for local trusts in partnership
with local stakeholders to determine how best to use their funds
to meet national and local priorities for improving health and
to commission services accordingly, this includes provision of
such posts and the deployment of specialist nurses. There is anecdotal
evidence that some trusts are looking critically at specialist
posts to ensure they are targeted in the right areas, are productive
and are meeting service needs. There is also some evidence of
specialist neurological nurse posts being cut or transferred to
generalist roles as part of organisations' cost savings plans.
2.3 I would like to reiterate the comments
I made to the committee. Specialist nurses are crucial to the
reform programme and organisations will not make the type of change
we want to see without using specialist nurses
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