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UK – Nurse staffing crisis fuelling global recruitment

17 December 2014

Three-quarters of NHS hospitals in England recruited almost 6,000 nurses from overseas in just 12 months, exposing a deepening crisis in nurse staffing levels, according to nursingtimes.net

Data gathered from all 140 acute hospitals in England showed the majority had actively sought nurses from abroad during the last 12 months.

In the 12 months to September, 5,778 nurses were actively recruited from overseas to work at more than 100 NHS hospitals.

The most popular countries for recruitment were Spain, Portugal, and the Philippines; which combined contributed more than 3,700 nurses. The largest number (1,925) came from Spain.

Last year Nursing Times found that 40 out of 105 trusts recruited 1,360 overseas nurses over a similar timescale, suggesting the desperation of trusts to fill vacant posts has substantially increased.

The mass recruitment drive comes in the wake of the Francis report, which called into question the care failings at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, new safe staffing guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and rules on staffing level transparency from NHS England which were released earlier this year.

Fourteen trusts recruited more than 100 overseas nurses each, with King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust recruiting 276 nurses, of which 240 came from the Philippines.

The recruitment drive means that overseas nurses made up 80% of all qualified nursing staff recruited to the NHS since September 2013. A total of 7,111 full-time equivalent nurses joined the service over the period, according to figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

The overseas trend shows no signs of abating, with 93 acute trusts telling Nursing Times they planned to recruit overseas in the next year and 32 predicting they will find jobs for 1,800 nurses.

The data also revealed details of the recent rise in staffing levels – the so-called “Francis effect” – with 107 acute trusts increasing their nursing levels – 11 by more than +10%.

Professor Jane Ball, a nursing workforce expert at the University of Southampton, said: “We are in a serious shortage of nurses and it is a shortage that has been waiting to be realised, it is not new or sudden. The Francis Inquiry was a catalyst to uncover what had been until then a more hidden problem.”

“This is about uncovering what has been a growing, deepening problem that the NHS decided not to focus on because of financial pressures and other challenges,” she said, labelling the overseas recruitment drives as a “band aid” for the problem of staffing shortages.

“[It’s] a short-term stop-gap and so inefficient,” she added.

Howard Catton, Policy Director at the Royal College of Nursing, said the new data was “powerful evidence of a shortage of nurses,” adding that the number of training places for UK nurses needed to increase by up to +9% a year for three or four years to improve supply.

He explained: “This is demand driven and the result of organisations looking much more seriously at their establishments and whether it is fit for purpose. It is the classic boom and bust cycle and short term response. The big risk is that we can’t know how long these people will stay with us.”