Agency
Nurses: a Sticking Plaster Solution
Exercise
1e: Using words which are in the vocabulary lists in front of
the previous two areas of text, complete the following sentences. The words
will have to be changed in some small way (the first one is done as an
example).
a. The
ward began to fill up and by
eight o clock the queue had
into the
corridor, (meaning: what happens when there is no space).
Answer: The ward began to fill
up and by eight o clock the queue had overflowedinto the corridor.
b. She had no idea about how to do the job
and was sacked for being
...... (meaning:
not able to work effectively).
c. Low
pay is never a good……. to work
hard, (meaning: a reward which
encourages or motivates you).
d............................................. She
has worked in this post for a……. period of four years. (meaning: unbroken).
e. Because of the many problems in the NHS,…….nurses
is very difficult. (meaning: keeping staff).
Exercise
1e:
Here is a summary of what you have
just read. The articles (a, an, the, some) have been left out. Complete the
summary, putting a word into each space (if necessary):
……. nurses are finding it difficult
working…….NHS hospitals…….. wards are overcrowded and understaffed. There is …….problem with recruitment
and training and, in order to adequately staff ….... wards, many hospitals have to use…….
agency nurses, which means not only do they have to pay more, but....... standard of patient care is lowered.
Exercise 1:
Answer each of these
questions in a complete sentence:
1- What
has the situation in the hospital led to?
2- Why
are some NHS Trusts in Leeds paying private agency nurses to travel from London
(about 200 miles)?
3- Why
is not the profession of nursing attractive to potential new recruits?
4- What
must the NHS Trusts do to attract nurses back into the NHS?
5- How
many kinds of bank nurses are they? What are they?
6- Why
have some agency nurses been sent back to the agency?
7- What
did Liz Jenkins point out?
Exercise 2:
Fill in the blanks with
information from the text:
1- The gaps in staffing are filled by
_____________.
2- In the past, hospitals used agency nurses
to ____________ but now we have no alternative but to rely on them day to day
to ________.
3- We are having to pay private nurses very
high rates of pay just to ____________.
4- In the meantime, the hospitals have to
find___________. Often, that comes from __________.
5- The fear has been raised that temporary
nurses are__________.
6- The ward sister also said that at her hospital
they have had to increase pay rates for specialist areas such as cardiology and
intensive care, because _____________.
Exercise 3:
Translate the following paragraph from English into
Arabic:
To attract nurses back into the NHS
they must be paid properly and be able to combine work with family
responsibilities. We re doing things like trying to get people who are out of
nursing practice back in, getting out to supermarkets and holding road shows,
offering term-time contracts, job shares, and generally work more flexibly than
in the past. But this all takes time and our problems are
now.