Bed numbers have been temporarily reduced at Auckland District Health Board’s acute mental health unit in the wake of ongoing concerns about staffing levels.
The board is actively recruiting mental health nurses after staff shortages prompted Public Service Association members to hold a stopwork meeting in late September.
Three months earlier, staff had marched on Te Whetu Tawera inpatient unit to protest against assaults on staff at the unit.
Brendon Lane, PSA organiser, said the union held negotiations leading up to the 19 September meeting that lead to an agreement to cut bed numbers by six across the unit for at least a month while the board recruited and oriented new staff. “It’s an opportunity for everyone to have a bit of a breather and try and staff the unit appropriately rather than make do with such a high level of vacancies,” Lane said.
Anna Schofield, ADHB mental health services director of nursing, said vacancies were much less than a year ago. “The mental health leadership team knows that staff are working really hard and are committed to providing good nursing care, but are tired,” Schofield said. She also said the board did not accept that it was an unsafe working environment. New staff were due to start in November, and more scheduled to start in early 2012.
Lane said a further meeting was held on 23 September to discuss managing the roll-on impact of cutting unit beds on community mental health services. Schofield said community staff were working collaboratively on strategies to manage this, along with the mental health NGOs in the ADHB area. He said the union believed the board’s responses to staff concerns were a good start and the union was keen to continue to work with management to review the situation on a weekly basis.
Schofield also said that an external review commissioned by the board in May from Northland DHB’s chief medical advisor had found a “profound change in culture and clinical standards” since 2007-08 and the service was “now functioning at a high standard”.
A board spokesman said the report had been sent on to the Health and Disability Commissioner in August and the board wanted to make the review document public “as soon as possible”.
