Health News Nursing posts lie unfilled in county
Over 250 vacancies here and increasing
The number of nursing vacancies in NHS Lanarkshire is rising, according to new statistics.
The Information Services Division (ISD) Scotland’s figures show that there were over 250 vacancies for nurses across NHS Lanarkshire in March this year.
This is higher than at the same time in 2015 and 2016 .
Five per cent of positions within nursing and midwifery across NHS Lanarkshire are unfilled.
This compares to just 3.3 per cent in March 2016.
Central Scotland Labour MSP Richard Leonard, said: “Time and again, nursing staff, and staff right across the NHS, tell us that they feel they don’t have the resources or the time to deliver the care they want to. These figures are proof positive of that.
“I have raised before my concerns that NHS Lanarkshire is considering encouraging workers to postpone their retirement, and is becoming over reliant on bank and agency staff. There is a workforce crisis developing inside our NHS, and we cannot ignore it any longer.”
The figures also show that spending on ‘ bank’ staff has increased by almost £ 1million over the course of two years, representing a four per cent increase.
Unison, the public sector trade union, has branded the increased spend as proof that the NHS is not spending extra resources in a long-term, sustainable way.
Motherwell and Wishaw MSP Clare Adamson said: “NHS Lanarkshire are currently in the midst of a recruitment drive with an open-door recruitment day for nurses held at Wishaw General on Friday, June 16.”
Irene Barkby, NHS Lanarkshire’s director of nursing, said: “Over the past two years we have sought and secured funding for an additional 121 whole time equivalent nurses to fill new posts and those which are subject to natural turnover in staff.
“A number of factors, including changes to the retirement age, mean that health boards across Scotland are facing the challenges of an ageing workforce. As a result we actively undertake bulk recruitment of new nursing staff to Lanarkshire by holding regular recruitment events and have a dedicated website for nurse recruitment.
“It is important to note that our staff bank is predominantly made up of existing NHS Lanarkshire employees which affords our staff the opportunity to work additional hours and allows services to retain consistency in care and service provision.
“The increased spend on bank staff reflects that the fact we have intentionally reduced our expenditure on costly agency staff in favour of securing additional short term staffing from the staff bank.”
We actively undertake bulk recruitment of new nursing staff to Lanarkshire