Nursing places boost gets mixed reception

ABOUT 2600 extra nursing and midwifery training places will be created over the next four years.

The National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan, published yesterday, sets out how the Scottish Government will help secure sustainable NHS staffing with a programme of change in health and social care.

Opposition parties pointed out the extra nurses were necessary to reverse Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to cut training places when she was health secretary despite warnings from the Royal College of Nursing.

Labour said the failure to train enough staff left soaring numbers of unfilled posts in the health service and put services at risk, with units across Scotland threatened with closure because of staff shortages.

The SNP’s workforce plan has been repeatedly delayed and has been split into three parts, with the full plan not likely to be available until next year.

Scottish Labour’s health spokesman Anas Sarwar, right, said: “Labour welcome the promise of additional training places and we hope it is a promise the SNP Government keeps. “In 2012, Nicola Sturgeon claimed cutting training places was a sensible way forward. Instead we got a staffing crisis in our hospitals. “This plan also says nothing on scrapping the NHS pay cap.” Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “The NHS workforce is at record levels in Scotland but it’s clear that demand is going to continue to rise.

“Increasing staff numbers is part of the solution.

“The latest figures for recruitment rates into NHS training places will shortly be published, and I hope our efforts to improve the attractiveness of training will lead to improvements.”