Nursing wastage from the nurses’ perspective

Abstract

Wastage is an emotive term. In the dictionary the meaning of waste is peppered with pejorative terms such as: unproductive, desolate, useless expenditure (Chambers 1988). On the whole it is regarded as a negative word. To waste is quite simply a bad thing. Having considered how emotionally loaded is the meaning of the word, one has to ask why it is generally used instead of the less emotive term ‘turnover’, particularly with regard to the service sector. Rarely do you hear talk of the wastage rates of factory workers in industry where the notion of ‘turnover’ is routinely used. So, in contrast to the emotively charged term of ‘wastage’, turnover is defined as ‘the number of employees starting or finishing employment at a particular place of work over a given period’. Turnover is a clean, clear definition of a situation. So, while ‘turnover’ is essentially factual in thrust, ‘wastage’ is a judgemental term, incorporating ideas of uselessness, loss and unprofitability. Just as the poet, William Wordsworth (1807), spoke of echoes — ‘Like — but oh, how different’ — so being part of the turnover of the NHS has different connotations to being part of the wastage of the NHS. From a nurse’s standpoint it is important to see the difference. Indeed, our aim here is to try to understand the nurses’ point of view.