Overstretched school nurses are increasingly taking on child protection work after the Baby P scandal, union leaders say.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) fears that a shortage of nurses in schools will mean that cases of child abuse are still being overlooked. The shortage is also putting children’s health at risk, it says.

Nearly three quarters of school nurses spend a significant amount of their time dealing with child-protection issues, compared with about half in 2005, according to a union poll of 1,000 school nurses.

The average nurse is responsible for child-protection issues in 26 schools, but low staffing suggests that nurses are struggling to cope with a workload that also involves tackling teenage pregnancy rates and providing HPV vaccinations.

Gordon Brown repeated a government promise this week to install one school nurse for each secondary school and a related group of primary schools in England. The RCN said that hundreds more nurses were needed to achieve this by next year.

Peter Carter, the union’s general secretary, noted the renewed focus on safeguarding young children after Lord Laming’s recent inquiry.

“We don’t think we are in a position to be able to afford children the protection they need and the assessments, simply because there are insufficient staff. In the wake of Baby P, logic must suggest there’s a huge problem out there that we are not aware of. We become aware of it when there’s tragic consequences.”

According to the RCN, the number of school nurses in England working the equivalent of full-time needs to increase from 2,634 in 2008 to 6,000. The union said that at least 709 more nurses were needed for 3,343 schools if the Government were to meet its target.

“For this to happen, we would need as much progress in one year as we have seen in the last four,” Dr Carter said.

Only 1,062 nurses have a specialist qualification in working with children and young people, the union says.

Dr Carter said there was evidence that some nurses were not being given an annual review to help them to keep up to date with child protection.