Recruitment crisis facing NHS chiefs

THE staffing crisis at the NHS has been laid bare by figures showing that nurse and midwife vacancies have soared by 200% across Tayside and Fife.

According to the latest official figures there are 217 unfilled posts for those professions in Tayside, compared with 69 five years ago.

In Fife, 88 posts lie vacant compared with 31 in 2011, although that figure has dropped from a peak of 130 in 2014.

Anas Sarwar, the health spokesman for Scottish Labour which released the analysis of NHS Scotland figures, said vacancies have “rocketed” across the country.

NHS Tayside has had to resort to heavy agency staff spending and faces a £12 million budget deficit this year.

But health chiefs say they have recruited 211 newly-qualified nursing practitioners so far this year.

They say although the health board “can sometimes face hard-to-fill vacancies in some specialities”, patient safety has not been compromised.

A spokeswoman said: “We take a proactive approach to avoiding unnecessary reliance on use of agency personnel.

“While some short or longer-term workforce requirements can mean the use of agency staffing is necessary, our nursing and midwifery policies ensure that any use of agency nurses is only considered as a final option.”

An NHS Fife spokeswoman said it had made 89 new nursing appointments since the NHS Scotland figures were published in the summer and the recruitment drive is continuing.

“Recent recruitment efforts by NHS Fife mean we are now experiencing the lowest number of nursing and midwifery vacancies since 2012,” she added.

Health secretary Shona Robison said: “The increase in the number of vacancies is due to the creation of new posts in health boards, mainly as a result of information from our mandatory nursing workforce planning tools which help health boards to plan their staffing.

“It’s worth noting that compared to 2011 there are now almost 2,500 additional nursing and midwifery staff working in our NHS, an increase of 4.4%.”

Anas Sarwar.