Philippines nurses to plug shortage

More than 600 nurses are to be recruited from the Philippines in an attempt to plug Northern Ireland’s chronic nursing shortage.

The region’s health service is running on a shortage of 1,500 nurses – 10 per cent below capacity – with health chiefs warning of a difficult year ahead.

A lack of qualified nurses across the European Union and concerns over Brexit has meant health bosses must now look overseas for staff to fill vacant posts until enough local nurses can be trained up.

This is one of a number of measure being taken by the Department of Health to address the staffing shortage.

Northern Ireland’s chief nursing officer Charlotte Mcardle said the staffing problem arose because the supply from undergraduate recruitment had not kept up with demand and an ageing workforce.

She added that the overseas recruitment initiative was only intended as an interim measure “to get through the difficult years”.

“The answer for us is to grow our own workforce,” she said. “We can’t be reliant on other places to do that for us. The overseas programme is an interim step.”

There are between eight and ten applicants for every undergraduate place thanks to new investment, but the first band of new nurses will not complete their university qualifications until 2019.