26 HEALTH SERVICE Fears of gap in future nursing workforce
Number of nurses and midwives nearing retirement Driving down accidents
Fears have been ra i s ed over the increasing n u mbe r o f n u r s e s a n d midwives within NHS Lanarkshire who are nearing retirement age.
Fi g u r e s , o b t a i n e d b y To r y Central Scotland MSP Graham Si mpson, s how 18.6 per cent of nurses out of the 5906 in the health board are aged 55 or over, meaning nearly a f i f t h will be retiring at some point over the next decade.
He c l ai ms t hat wil l l eave a massive gap in the workforce, at a time when it’s already difficult to recruit nurses.
In 2011 the figure was 15.3 per cent in that age bracket.
He told the News: “Older nurses are invaluable to the NHS and provide much commitment and experience.
“But as these figures show, we cannot rely on them forever.
“A c r o s s N H S L a n a r k s h i r e nearly a fifth of the nursing and mi d w i f e r y work f o r c e w i l l b e retiring over the next decade.
“That’s going to leave a gaping hole at the heart of our health service.
“And considering the Scottish Government is already finding it difficult to fill nursing vacancies, unless it acts now, the problem is going to get significantly worse.”
The figures also reveal there has been a slight rise in the percentage of those aged between 60 and 64 from 4.43 per cent to 4.93 per cent between 2015 and 2016, while the percentage of nurses aged 65-plus remained at 0.66 per cent.
Anne Armstrong, nurse di re c t or of Nor t h Healt h a nd Social Care Par t nership, said: “These figures demonstrate our dual commitment of recruiting additional staff and retaining our current nurses and midwives.
“The figures show that we have an extra 108 nurses and midwives since 2015 and 412 more than 2011.
“We c ont i nue t o t a k e s t e ps to recruit to ensure we have the right number of staff to deliver our services now and in the future.
“Funding has also been made available to recruit over 100 newly qualified nurses who are due to start in October 2016. “Age is no longer an indication of retirement intentions. “While some staff can retire, it does not mean that they plan t o do so. In addition, our new recruits benefit from the expertise and knowledge of t hei r more experienced colleagues.” South Lanarkshire’s Route Ac t i o n P l a n s p r o g r a mme r e c e i v e d a t o p awa r d f o r driving down road accidents.
The council and Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) partnership won the ‘Most Effective Road Safety, Traffic Management and Enforcement Project ’ category at the 2016 Scottish Transport Awards.
The award comes as routes involved in the action plan saw a drop of 59 per cent in incidents last year.
The roads also saw an ov e r a l l r e d u c t i o n i n f at a l casualties to a new all-time l ow o f f i v e i n 2 0 1 5 a n d a decrease in the number of s e r i ous c a s ual t i e s now i n line with government targets.
The numbers also saw no child fatality on roads in 2015 and a continuing decrease in the number of serious casualties on roads amongst children.
South Lanarkshire Council Councillor Chris Thompson, who acts as chair of enterprise resources, accepted the award and was delighted with the progress so far.
He told the News: “We’re delighted to have won this award which recognises what we’ve achieved in reducing accidents and making South Lanarkshire roads safer, in partnership with SPT.
“This will continue as a key priority for the council.”