Ninety pct of hospitals in England hit by nurse shortage

Nine in ten hospitals in England fail to provide enough nurses for their patients, Britain's National Health Service (NHS) said in a new report Monday.

According to a monthly report, 207 of 225 hospitals in England were found unable to meet their targets for safe levels of nurses on wards. Among those, 81 percent of hospitals couldn't meet targets for night cover, while 79 percent missed both day and night.

It said in some hospitals, one nurse needs to take care of 22 patients.

A survey, which consulted about 1,000 nurses, also showed that they were under great pressure because they were unable to provide safe levels of care, and half of them said there were rarely or never enough nurses available. Three-quarters of respondents said they were forced to leave patients with not enough of the required care.

It is not a secret that hospitals in England are facing a nurse shortage, local media said, adding that a considerable number of hospitals have had to rely heavily on overseas recruitment.

"Staffing is a priority. We've put more than 7,600 additional nurses on our wards since May 2010 and there are 50,000 nurses currently in training," a spokesman of Britain's department of health said.

"We know that there are big challenges for hospitals, so we are helping the NHS to employ the staff it needs at a fair price by clamping down on rip-off staffing agencies and identifying billions of pounds of back-office savings so that as much money as possible goes to the front line," he added. Endit