Soaring NHS vacancies prompt warnings of ‘desperate’ understaffing
I attended the regional conference on rural health in Leicester last week. I came away feeling increasingly frustrated by the problems of recruiting rural health professionals. This story points to the rationale for the tale it follows of how the Scottish Government is innovating on that score. It tells us:
The number of vacancies in the NHS has soared by 15.8% over the last year, prompting warnings that the service is facing “desperate” problems of understaffing.
Figures for England released on Tuesday by NHS Digital show that the number of full-time equivalent posts available rose from 26,424 in March 2016 to 30,613 in March 2017 – the highest number on record.
A total of 86,035 such positions were advertised in the first quarter of this year, underlining the large number of health professionals and other staff that NHS trusts are seeking to fill.
However, NHS staff groups said the figures were a serious underestimate of the true number of vacancies, while NHS Digital itself admitted that they were undercounting, especially for nurses. The data also did not cover staff employed by GP surgeries, such as practice nurses.