Shortage of nurses at Oban hospital
A national nursing shortage is causing ‘increased costs’ and ‘a lack of continuity for patients’ in Argyll and has left 15 per cent of posts unfilled at Oban’s hospital.
Oban councillor Kieron Green, vice chairman of the Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership’s (HSCP)’s governing body, said: ‘Unfortunately there are national shortages of those qualified for many roles within health and social care, including nursing.
‘As a result here in Argyll we must depend on locum and agency nurses to keep some services running.
‘This leads to increased costs as well as a lack of continuity for patients.
‘On occasion this has meant us having to limit admissions to our hospital wards – and for McKenzie Care it was a factor that led it to taking the decision to withdraw nursing beds from the Lynn of Lorne Care Home. Prior to this Crossreach also closed Auchinlee Care Home in Campbeltown for similar reasons.
‘To sustain the range of services available here we must therefore attract more health and social care professionals to this area.
‘Key to this will be ensuring there is sufficient quality housing available for them and their families. This is a particular issue in and around Oban, where the lack of affordable homes, combined with an extremely competitive job market, can make recruitment incredibly difficult.
‘We are also working to ‘grow our own’ - providing more opportunities for people to gain skills and qualifications locally. Along with this there is the potential of further partnerships with local schools and Argyll College to encourage more young people to consider a career in health and social care.’
In the last financial year, NHS Scotland spent £175.7 million on nursing and midwifery bank and agency staff – an increase of £9.2 million (5.5 per cent) compared to 2016/17.
Currently Oban’s Lorn and Islands Hospital employs 96 trained nurses and there are 15 vacancies.
However, an NHS Highland spokesperson reassured: ‘Over and above this, there are health care support staff, operating department practitioners, nursing students and clinical assistants. And the figures do not include community nurses, midwives or health visitors.’
An HSCP spokesperson added: ‘We are experiencing challenges in recruiting nursing staff for the Oban area and we have a number of recruitment initiatives in place to try and attract more nurses to the locality.
‘This includes promoting Argyll and Bute as an attractive place to live and work, making greater use of social media to promote our vacancies, working closely with universities to attract student nurses to come and work in Oban, which we hope will encourage them to remain when they qualify, and visiting universities to speak to new graduate nurses directly about the benefits of coming to work in Argyll and Bute.’