NHS faces acute and growing staffing shortage, warns agency
The National Centre for Rural Health and Care will begin moving forward in earnest from 20 December when it takes on a full legal status as a body. This story explains one of the key themes it is seeking to engage with, it tells us:
Shortages are now so acute that:
- The NHS is short of 42,000 nurses, midwives, physiotherapists and occupational therapists.
- A widespread lack of nurses is most severe in London, where 15% of posts are vacant, and lowest at 8% in the north-east.
- There are 1,674 (26%) fewer district nurses and 842 fewer learning disability nurses than in 2012.
- GP numbers have fallen by 1% over the last five years despite a key government pledge to increase the total by 5,000 between 2015 and 2020.
- Almost one in three paramedic jobs are vacant across England.
- The number of nurses leaving the profession rose from 7.1% in 2011-12 to 8.7% last year.