Challenging Times for the UK Nursing Labour Force

The Royal College of Nursing in the United Kingdom has published a preliminary report outlining eight 'what if' scenarios and projecting their possible impact on the nursing labour force in the UK over the next decade.

"This [report] looks at the challenges facing nursing and the nursing workforce across the UK in 2011 which we believe are the greatest for a generation....this report highlights what the truly shocking scale of losses could be in the near future – in the worst case – a 28 per cent reduction in the nursing workforce [100,000 positions]. This would undoubtedly be hugely damaging to the quality of patient care....As an immediate first step, we [RCN] advocate that the supply of registered nurses should be stabilised and the decision to cut nursing student places by 10 per cent for 2010/11 to 2011/12 reversed."

This interim report is taken from the forthcoming Royal College of Nursing Labour Market Review (LMR) 2011.