11. Submissions on Behalf of the Royal College of Nursing by Ms Morris KC

Ms Morris: Good afternoon, my Lady. I represent the Royal College of Nursing and they are deeply grateful for the opportunity to provide evidence and make submissions.

As Patricia Cullen, the general secretary of the college, will say in her evidence, nursing staff across the UK carried the heavy burden of the Covid-19 pandemic, and they responded to the crisis in extraordinary ways: coming out of retirement, putting aside their studies, and being redeployed to specialised clinical areas.

As the college is explaining to the Inquiry in its evidence, it has a unique archive of the voices of nurses who contacted the college for advice and support during the pandemic. Key themes that they raised were the fact that they weren’t able to see their children because of their fear of bringing the infection home, that they saw their own colleagues sick and dying in hospital and went to work with a fear of death. They were working in conditions where they were short staffed, so that they were looking after patients with ratios which far exceeded those that were necessary to provide adequate care, and, as my learned friend from the TUC has mentioned again, risk assessments were not always carried out despite them being requested, particularly by those who were especially vulnerable.

This type of experience during the pandemic caused nurses to hit breaking point, and many of them to doubt whether they were able to continue a career in nursing.

Of course all of this impacted disproportionately on nurses from ethnic minorities, and the Royal College of Nursing echoes the submissions of the TUC and others in this regard.

Turning to the topic of long Covid, it is perhaps one of the most serious of the negative impacts of the pandemic on nurses now. A significant body of nurses have been left with chronic ill health, and that is as a result of their committed service to the community at a time of national crisis. It’s for this reason that the college adopts the proposals made by the TUC and others that long Covid be designated a disability, and also that there is consideration for a compensation scheme to meet the needs of those workers who are chronically ill as a result of their service during the pandemic, and that ought not to wait until the end of the Inquiry.

Picking up the thread of staffing levels, it is a key theme of the submissions of the Royal College of Nursing that the recommendations should include a strong legislative underpinning of government accountability for workforce planning and supply across the health and social care service, and a commitment to development of a sustainable nursing workforce if our country is to respond to a future pandemic.

Turning then to two process issues, first of all the scope of Module 6 and the question of how it should address the position of health services that are provided somewhere other than on NHS premises. The Royal College of Nursing gratefully adopts the submissions that were made on behalf of John’s Campaign in this regard. It’s important that these huge areas of health service provision do not fall through the gaps of this Inquiry.

First of all, one option is that there is an adaptation to the issues of this module to ensure that these matters are considered. The alternative is to be clear now about the scope of Module 6 so that, as those who represent John’s Campaign have suggested, everyone knows where their evidence and submissions should be directed.

That said, the Royal College of Nursing is sensitive to the practical difficulties in terms of trying to run both modules sequentially, and it doesn’t support that submission, but we would invite consideration of analysing the terms of reference so that everybody knows now where their efforts should be focused and everyone can feel secure that these important issues aren’t overlooked.

The second and final issue in terms of process relates to the topic of infection prevention and control. First of all, the Royal College of Nursing is very grateful that the CTI’s statement has acknowledged the need to prepare a chronology of the iterations of IPC guidance over the period, but what the college would seek to reinforce is the point in its written submissions that when it undertook its resource – researches for the purposes of preparing its statement, it was unable to establish itself a full suite of documentation.

My Lady will recall that at the time guidance was frequently changing and it seems that there is not, even in the national archive, from our researches, a complete suite of documentation.

If it is to be understood who decided what and when, and then how that information was disseminated, we would encourage the Inquiry to use all its powers to secure a full set of documentation to inform its intended chronology.

The second issue under that heading is as follows: the college welcomes again the identification that we’ve had today of those who are to be the panel of experts on this topic, but what they would welcome is engagement at this stage on the terms of the letters of instruction.

My Lady may remember the evidence of Rose Gallagher of the Royal College of Nursing under Module 1 and her specialism in infection control, and we would say that it may be that the Royal College of Nursing has some insights which might assist in focusing particular areas of instruction.

If we can’t persuade the Inquiry of that, we would also adopt the submission of John’s Campaign that it would be of huge assistance to receive the letters of instruction at the same time that we receive the reports for all the reasons that they’ve advanced.

Those are my submissions, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Ms Morris.

Right, Mr Stanton, and then we’ll break after you, Mr Stanton.