Students’ clinical practice will suffer if 115,000 extra nursing staff are not found. Sue Jones reports
SERIOUS staff shortages are putting government plans to modernise the National Health Service at risk, says the Royal College of Nursing.
The RCN - which represents one third of a million nurses, healthcare assistants and students - welcomes the progress made in recruiting new nurses, but claims many will be lost to the NHS unless the career structure, pay and conditions are improved.
And without sufficient staff in post, student nurses in training for the future cannot get the supervised clinical practice they need.
Behind the Headlines, the latest RCN report on the UK nursing labour workforce, says that the Government’s target of 20,000 extra nurses by 2004 will be met, but only by short-term measures such as recruiting already-trained nurses from abroad.
To reach the global nursing and midwifery staffing target of 330,000, the RCN calculates that 115,000 new nurses will be needed. They could be recruited internationally, from returners and from newly qualified staff.
Although 310,000 nurses and midwives are currently in post, retirements and moves outside the sector mean that 95,000 are expected to leave the NHS by 2004. Added to the Government’s target of 20,000 extra nurses, this makes a total shortfall of 115,000.
Technological advances and an ageing population throughout the West will make international recruitment of skilled nurses more competitive in the future - they will go where pay and conditions are best. And although the Government is encouraging qualified staff back into the NHS, only 15 per cent of nurses are not currently working, leaving a limited pool of potential returners.
With NHS staff working flat out on patient care, it is difficult to find clinical placements for students in training. Anne Eaton, education adviser at the RCN, says training institutions should look outside the NHS to social services and the private sector, but it will not be straightforward.
“Some universities are not good at using clinical placements outside the NHS, such as BUPA hospitals,” she said. “There are lots of issues around using non-traditional placements, and there’s a move to find more and better clinical placements, but they also need support. There’s a massive issue in relation to support.”
