Adios! Foreign nurses desert the NHS after a few months
HUNDREDS of foreign nurses hired by the NHS are quitting after a few months in the job, figures show.
Understaffed hospitals are increasingly having to recruit from Spain, Portugal and Italy because of a severe lack of homegrown nurses.
Managers are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds hiring nurses in batches of 20 to 30 at a time at specially-arranged recruitment fairs.
But an investigation has found that 943 of the 5,680 nurses recruited over the last two years have since quit.
This includes aintree Hospital, in liverpool where all of the 14 nurses hired from Spain in 2012/13 left, many returning home. In East Kent 21 out of 26 had departed.
Often nurses find it difficult to settle in due to the language barrier, different healthcare system and weather. leaving close family at home is also an important factor.
The figures obtained by the Nursing Times under the Freedom of Information act also showed that 13 trusts lost at least half of the foreign nurses hired in the last two years.
about 20,000 nursing posts are vacant. This is partly a result of the Government slashing the number of nurse training posts by 15 per cent since 2010. That led to fewer coming up from university.
Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients association, said the figures highlighted how recruiting overseas nurses was only a ‘temporary, short-term measure.’
‘This money would be far better spent here, training and supporting our own nurses to deliver the high quality care that patients deserve. We hear from patients on our helpline that there are real issues with nurses from other countries, including problems with communication and a lack of understanding of processes and procedures.
‘We are concerned that poor English skills may lead to mistakes and misunderstandings when patients are trying to explain their problems.’
Dr Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: ‘The last couple of years have seen increasingly desperate attempts to plug the gap with more nurses from
‘Some of the sums
are ludicrous’
overseas, who have undoubtedly made a huge contribution and kept the NHS afloat.
‘Some of the sums spent on recruiting staff have been ludicrous and the fact that Trusts are not able to keep hold of them is a natural result of years of lackadaisical workforce planning in the NHS.’
a Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Since May 2010, we have 21,300 more permanent clinical staff working in the NHS, including 9,500 more doctors and nearly 8,000 more nurses on our wards.
‘We’ve also invested in leadership training to create a new generation of senior nurses, and we’re running a campaign to get experienced nurses who’ve left the profession back to work – with over 1,300 signed up.’