A recent study has revealed that many nursing professionals felt overlooked during the Covid-19 pandemic, to the point where they considered a change in career.
The University of York held focus groups with 40 nurses across England to gain insights into the impact of the pandemic on their well-being and the factors contributing to job dissatisfaction.
The findings from the study revealed that nurses had little to no say in conversations regarding the restoring of healthcare services during Covid-19, despite their significant role in conducting the majority of face-to-face interactions throughout the crisis.
General practice nurses in England are responsible for serving seven million patients monthly and a staggering 84 million annually. However, a recent report has projected that a quarter of general practice nursing positions in England could remain unfilled in a decade. This highlights the critical importance of retaining nursing staff for the NHS's future, particularly at a time when retaining GPs is also a pressing concern.
Respondents noted that nurses had lots of thoughts on how to improve services, yet miss out on the opportunity to share them because they are not invited to do so.
Another disparity highlighted by the study was that nurses feel underappreciated, mainly by colleagues, when it comes to their medical knowledge and expertise. For example, diabetes management, asthma care and immunisation.
Dr Anderson said: “We found there were three key areas that could make nurses feel more valued in their position, which could help with future job retention rates beyond the Covid-19 pandemic.
“A key factor is being included in decision-making on significant changes to general practice. The second is for management to demonstrate understanding of the roles that nurses have, and remunerating them appropriately, as it was often pointed out to us that colleagues seemed to be unaware of what nurses were doing on a daily basis.
“Lastly it was important to our study participants that there was more awareness raising of the ‘invisible’ role they play with colleagues, the media, and general public, to improve understanding of the highly skilled work that they do.”
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