‘Not enough nurses to look after us all’
THE NHS has a shortfall of more than 43,000 nurses, a report will reveal today.
The stark warning from the National Audit Office also flags up a “significant time lag” of at least three to four years before policies to train new nurses have an impact.
Despite overall numbers in the NHS in England increasing by five per cent during the past decade, there were over 43,590 vacancies reported by NHS trusts in July to September 2019.
That is about 12 per cent of the entire nursing workforce. Public Accounts Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier, said: “As the coronavirus spreads, the importance of the NHS and nurses who look after us becomes ever more apparent.
“Plans to increase the numbers of nurses starting degrees have failed to meet expectations.”
She added that the NHS People Plan, expected in the spring, “must be fully funded and finally start to tackle the real reasons why there are not enough nurses”.
Susan Masters, the Royal College of Nursing’s director of nursing, policy and practice, said: “There simply aren’t enough nurses joining the profession in England to look after the health of the population.
“Next week’s Budget is the perfect opportunity for the Government to respond to the workforce problems of NHS and social care.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “There are already record numbers of nurses in our NHS, up by over 8,000 compared to the same time last year.”