The rhetoric and criticism surrounding the increasing use of overseas nurses to cope with NHS staffing shortages has been described as “insulting” by a senior health service manager, reports Nursing Times.

Danny Mortimer, Chief Executive of the NHS Employers organisation, said some of the language used by commentators about the issue of recruiting nurses from abroad was “slightly unfortunate” and “poorly chosen”.

In his first major interview since taking up post at NHS Employers at the end of last year, Mr Mortimer told Nursing Times that the number of overseas nurses recruited by the NHS was “relatively small”, compared to the overall nursing workforce.

“Nurses coming from overseas to work or train in this country is not a new thing,” he said. “The idea that [we are] panic buying nurses I thought, to be frank, was pretty insulting to the senior nurses that go out and recruit nurses. The nursing colleagues who did that work, who did the [job] interviews, took it really seriously indeed.”

He acknowledged, however, that the recruitment of overseas nurses was the result of a need to plan better, following the publication in 2013 of the Francis report into care failings at the former Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust: “It does speak to the fact is that we just haven’t got our planning as perfected as it needs to be.”

“What no one anticipated was both the response to Francis, in terms of the correct investment in nursing numbers, and also the demands that there would be to increase emergency capacity, particularly in the acute sector,” he explained.

But Mr Mortimer said the focus on international recruitment was leading to a “broader debate about what do we need to do to recruit and retain the right levels of nursing workforce”. 

He also defended high levels of spending on agency nursing staff by trusts, which has been strongly criticised recently. He acknowledged that the “level of spend is noticeably higher than it was two years ago”, but said that in a “situation where there isn’t enough supply of nurses, we’re going to look to agencies and bank”.

“Trusts are looking to fill gaps in rotas, they’re looking to fill shifts, and that means more times than not, there are enough nurses on a shift looking after patients, and what’s what we want. The level of spend isn’t because the agencies are ramping up their rates it’s because we are using more and more people.”

He highlighted the existence of a number of framework agreements in place and different parts of the country between trusts and agencies: “In fairness to agencies most, if not all of them, realise the importance of trying to work together in a structured way,” he added.

In May last year, NHS Employers revealed that 83% of health service organisations in England were facing nursing shortages. The review was based on questionnaires completed by 104 trusts.

Mr Mortimer admitted that would “still be [the] picture” this May. “People are rightly investing in numbers… but the supply of staff isn’t at the level of demand. So yes, I think people will still be struggling but I know that employers and nurse leaders are doing everything they can to source people and keep the people they’ve got and welcome people back to practice.”