The demand for nursing staff in European countries remains high with the number of job vacancies increasing for the UK, Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium, from 2016 to 2017, according to data from Jobfeed.

The data showed that the UK has a shortage of nurses with 790 nurses per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest number of the five countries surveyed. This is compared to 990 nurses per 100,000 inhabitants in France, 1,050 for the Netherlands, 1,080 for Belgium and 1,330 for Germany.

The UK also has the highest number of vacancies per 100,000 inhabitants with 520.

Further data from Jobfeed showed that the increase in nurse vacancies between 2015 and 2017 has risen for all five countries surveyed. Germany showed the biggest increase at 26.2%, followed by Belgium (18.0%), UK (17.2%), Netherlands (16.9%) and France (2.9%).

In the Netherlands, nurse shortages are so high that Dutch hospitals sometimes find themselves forced to temporarily announce a patient stop.

In the UK, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) reported that the number of EU and UK nurses quitting the NHS outweighs the number of newly registered nurses (Oct 2016 – Sep 2017).

JobFeed states that with a growing and aging population, the demand for nursing staff will increase rather than decrease.

For the survey data, JobFeed analysed nearly 1.5 million vacancies for nurses, posted in the period 1 November 2015 to 31 October 2017 in Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.