Paediatric nursing is one of the nursing speciality that involves the care and nursing of children. In the UK, the average birth rate is around 11.17 births per thousand people. This leads to a growing need of paediatric nurses who are able to meet the nursing requirements of the steady birth rate of the country.
However, there are several challenges when it comes to meeting the paediatric nursing needs of a country like the UK. What are these challenges? And why should young students be keen to learn about these challenges and prepare to join the nursing service in the UK? Let’s find out.
Paediatric Nursing Challenges in The UK
The primary paediatric nursing challenge in the UK is short staffing of paediatric nurses. This is well understood. However, as you go deeper, there are actually several other factors at play here that cause the shortage in staffing of paediatric nurses. Let’s take a detailed look into the various nursing challenges in the UK.
1.Growing Demand of Paediatric Nurses
Growing demand for paediatric nurses mainly comes from the growing population of the UK, which includes children born in the UK as well as a large part of the migratory population. In 2024, almost 18% (17.47%) of the UK population is children below the age of 18. Considering the significant population of the country at almost 70 million (69.1 million), this creates a large number of paediatric patients with varying healthcare requirements.
2.Lack of Training Facilities
Paediatric nursing is a specialty nursing field. Students enrolled in general nursing courses can only opt for it through special facilities and colleges. Given there is a lack of training facilities dedicated to paediatric nurses, this leads to a shortage of paediatric nurses that are currently available to meet the growing demand.
3.Limited Resource Access
Paediatric nurses are generally supposed to be working in children’s hospitals and other paediatric healthcare facilities. However, there is a shortage of dedicated paediatric healthcare facilities as well. The limited resources strain the ability for existing paediatric nurses to meet the growing demand of paediatric healthcare facilities. The limited resources often cause a pressure on emergency medical services and intensive care units which have to deal with medical complications in paediatric patients caused due to lack of dedicated primary healthcare facilities.
4.Limited Training To Deal With Growing Patient Needs
As mentioned previously, nurses have limited training to deal with paediatric patient’s needs. Dedicated nursing facilities to learn about paediatric nursing are also limited, which leads to staffing shortages. In the current scenario, a lot of nurses who do not have paediatric training need to care for young patients due to the staffing shortages. This leads to gap in medical care and care providers not understanding the special needs of young patients.
5.Overworking of Existing Nurses
Given the staffing problems mentioned above, there is an added stress on the existing nurses to meet the growing demands. Given other nurses are not best equipped to offer medical care for paediatric patients, it leads to an overworking of existing paediatric nurses. This situation can only be improved with more facilities for paediatric nursing education and more dedicated paediatric healthcare centres. Another major problem encountered by existing paediatric nurses is mentioned below.
6.Mental Health of Paediatric Nurses
When nurses or medical professionals in general are overworked and constantly have to deal with medical emergencies, it leads to a situation of empathy loss. This is especially troubling for paediatric nurses as a loss of empathy can lead to children being more scared of their medical problems and also growing up with a negative outlook of medical professionals. This is why it is crucial for medical professionals to get adequate breaks in their work.
Future Outlook of Paediatric Nursing Challenges in The UK
With the challenges laid out, it becomes easy to understand how these challenges can be managed by the UK healthcare system. While concluding that there is a need to staff more paediatric nurses is easy, it is crucial to understand that developing the infrastructure to improve the number of nurses in the future take time. This is why it is crucial for students to take aim of pursuing paediatric specific nursing courses and meeting the labour shortages in the UK.
Conclusion
With efforts from students and appropriate guidance, they can easily get placed in top UK hospitals and even in other European countries as paediatric nurses. So, if you are a nursing student, be sure to check out paediatric nursing. It will allow you to get placed easily and get stability in your career as a registered nurse.
For any help with your nursing assignments and research papers, be sure to check out Digi Assignment Help. We offer dedicated nursing assignment help services offered by nursing professionals and graduates from the top nursing schools in the UK.
