Dunfermline: Staffing is at 'danger levels' at Lynebank hospital, says nurse

The worker, who did not want to be identified and had read similar claims from nurses in the Press previously, said that the problems at Lynebank Hospital had been going on for more than a year.

"There is a lack of staff as there is, of course, members of staff with sickness," the nurse explained, "but there are also staff members leaving to go to work in the community or leaving the service completely, which is frustrating as we have lost many good members of nurses and nursing assistants.

"We are often running short-staffed and it's to the point that staff can't be out of the building at times on their break due to not having enough staff to cover breaks."

They said that current workers did their best to cover absences, often using bank staff to fill gaps, but it was not enough to minimise concerns and that patients in the learning disability wards were starting to become aware.

This, she claimed, had led to increased levels of challenging behaviour, resulting in staff members being attacked "verbally and physically".

Lynn Barker, associate director of nursing for the Fife Health and Social Care Partnership, said: "Staffing levels within our learning disability service, like many other areas, have at times been impacted by COVID-19, either due to absence associated with the virus or the requirement to isolate. Our staffing levels within the learning disability service, like all our services, are reviewed on a daily basis to support and address any challenges it faces.

"The safety of patients and staff is our highest priority and staffing levels are continually monitored across the service. To minimise the impact of COVID, the staff working within the service have worked across the four learning disability wards at Lynebank Hospital to ensure better resilience across the whole service.

"Working within our learning disability wards can be incredibly complex due to the complex needs of the patients, and staff within the service work incredibly hard to ensure patients receive good-quality care. In addition to the undoubted dedication they show, the staff working within our learning disability service are highly-skilled and specially-trained, which can make recruitment more challenging. Despite this, work is under way to actively help us try to recruit both experienced and newly-qualified learning disability nursing staff to bolster our clinical teams.

"We recognise the pressures that existing staff have experienced, and we continue to ensure that a range of support remains in place. Where staff have concerns about any aspect of their role, we listen, and there are well-established processes across NHS Scotland to enable staff to highlight any potential issues in order that they can be looked into and addressed."