We’re 1,000 nurses short in the West

Exclusive: Fears of another winter crisis as shock figures revealed

MORE than a thousand nursing positions are unfilled across the South West, meaning under-pressure health trusts are being forced to spend millions of pounds on agency staff and look as far as the Philippines and UAE for recruitment.

The strain on trusts against an increase in demand from patients has led to the closure of hospital wards and a reliance on contracted nurses to work overtime and unsocialable hours.

Out of 14 trusts in the South West approached, only eight could disclose the number of nursing positions unfilled – but almost all acknowledged shortages and an ongoing struggle to bring in new qualified nurses.

Figures released recently by NHS Improvement show a 12.9 per cent vacancy rate for nurses, 10,110 positions, in the South.

The South West regional director for The Royal College of Nursing, Susan Masters, today warned “the nursing crisis is becoming a social crisis”.

She claims everyone will soon be feeling the impact of the shortage if more funding into the recruitment was not found.

Already, health trusts in the South West are failing to meet NHS targets with eight per cent of patients waiting six weeks or more diagnostic tests, against a one per cent target, for September. Trust bosses also struggle to meet targets for cancer waiting times and A&E.

Mrs Masters, pictured, said: “The shortage of nursing is have a huge impact across the South West.

“As demand continues to grow, not only are patients seeing waiting times increase but nurses are facing more pressure to work over their expected hours. And as we start to begin to face winter pressures, the situation is only going to worsen.”

The RCN is calling on the Government to invest £1 billion into supporting the training of nurses. Whitehall cut the living bursary for nursing students two year ago.

The University of West of England saw an almost 25 per cent fall in nursing graduates, with 322 students completing the university’s adult nursing course this year, compared to 404 last year.

A spokesman said: “Nationally there has been a substantial decline in applications for nursing courses and the picture is no different at UWE Bristol.”

With the pool of UK-trained nurses getting smaller, health trusts are having to go further afield.

A recruitment team from North Bristol NHS Trust recently returned from Dubai in UAE. In October it spent £932,000 on agency staff.

Carole Tookey, director of nursing at the trust, said: “As with many hospitals across the country we face challenges recruiting nurses and are working hard to recruit nurses both in the UK and overseas.”

Somerset Partnership NHS Trust closed inpatient wards at three hospitals – Wellington, Chard and Dene Barton – due to nursing shortages.

In October, it spent £554,000 on agency staff, taking the total in 2018/19 to £3.3m so far – almost £1m over the targeted amount.

Hayley Peters, chief nurse at Somerset Partnership and Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trusts, said: “The significant shortages of staff have meant we had to temporally close a number of our community hospital wards to consolidate our staff to ensure patients were cared for safely.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said a long term plan being deviced would ensure nursing students get the “right support throughout their training”.

He added: “There are 11,400 more nurses on our wards since 2010, 52,000 nurses currently in NHS training and we have made more funding available to increase university training places.”