Last updated at 08:23 13 May 2008

A cost-cutting NHS trust was condemned yesterday for allowing one nurse to run a busy hospital ward by herself for an entire shift.

The nurse, the only fully qualified member of the nursing team on duty, was forced to do jobs usually covered by up to seven nurses.

Health chiefs said 'unforeseen staff sickness' caused the problem on the 30-bed mixed general ward at Bridlington Hospital in East

Yorkshire over the last Bank

Holiday weekend.

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But union leaders claim nursing

levels at the hospital are "critically

low" and are considering reporting

the Scarborough and North East

Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust to

the professional standards body.

Iain McInnes, chief executive of

the Scarborough NHS Trust, said

the staffing incident happened

during one shift on Saturday.

He said: "Patient safety was not

compromised at any time during

the course of the shift period."

But critics claim the debt-ridden

trust has been risking patient well-being

by cutting back on staff levels

to save money.

Greg Knight, Tory MP for East

Yorkshire, said: "This is totally

unacceptable. Bridlington is atourist area and the population

rises during the summer months

and bank holidays, so this level of

nursing cover is quite shocking."

He said the hospital's problems

were all cash-related and that as a

relatively modern hospital the

services offered should be

"expanded, not cut back".

Kevin Coyne, health spokesmanfor the Unite union, said: 'The nursing

levels at Bridlington Hospital

are critically low and we are

extremely worried about the impact

on the care of those on the wards.

"We are considering reporting the

matter to the Nursing and Midwifery

Council because we believe

this is unsafe practice."

Last year, plans were announced

to downgrade Bridlington Hospital

by closing two acute medical wards

and transferring the six-bed cardiac

monitoring unit to a hospital 20

miles away.

The shake-up has been met by

fierce local opposition and in March

a 37,000-signature petition calling

for the services to be saved was

handed in at Downing Street.

Mr Coyne added: "We believe it is

death by a thousand cuts because

the trust is intent on closing the

wards in question.

"Clearly the wards are understaffed

at the moment and they

intend moving services to Scarborough.

We believe that is wrong."

A spokesman for the NHS Trustsaid of the Bank Holiday incident:

"There was a site coordinator and if

required she could have very easily

transferred some nurses from other

wards across to that ward."

Only last year the trust shelved

plans to axe 600 jobs – one third of

its workforce – when the strategic

health authority agreed to write

off the bulk of its £12million debt.

Despite imposing a recruitment

freeze, last month the trust advertised

17 finance posts with a combined

annual wage bill of around

£450,000, said to be necessary to

secure the organisation's future.