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Nursing levels in rude health after recruitment turnaround

THE Lothians has gone from having the highest number of nursing vacancies in Scotland to one of the lowest in just two years.

Figures released today show hospital wards across the Lothians are now far less likely to be under-staffed following a major recruitment drive.

Two years ago, NHS Lothian was the worst performing health board in the country, with more than 450 nursing vacancies. It now has one of the best rates, with just 137 workers still required to fill gaps.

The turnaround comes despite the cost of living in Edinburgh, a factor previously blamed for NHS Lothian’s poor staffing levels.

Union leaders today praised health leaders for improving the nurse recruitment programme.

Lynn Masson, of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “Someone was appointed with the sole task of recruiting more staff, and that person managed to get more nurses into employment in the Lothians.

“For patients that creates better staffing on the wards. For staff, by cutting down on agency nurses and offering permanent employment, it means better working terms and conditions.

“NHS Lothian went around the country to recruit staff and it also looked at more flexible working patterns to attract people. In addition, it encouraged people who had been out of nursing for many years to return.”

Ms Masson said the cost of living in the Capital was still prohibitive, and many nurses choose to live in the Borders or Fife.

“But they are attracted to the city because there is a brand new hospital at Little France, which offers them a great package and scope for development,” she said.

Ms Masson warned NHS Lothian to “not rest on its laurels” and said it should continue to keep a low level of vacancies or patient care would suffer.

The new figures show there were the whole-time equivalent of 6416 nurses and midwives at the end of March this year, compared with 6274 at the same point last year. In percentage terms, vacancies have fallen from 7.1 per cent to 2.1 per cent since 2005.

The number of vacancies for non-registered nurses, such as clinical support workers, has also dropped by half since last year.

NHS Lothian’s director of nursing, Heather Tierney-Moore, said: “NHS Lothian is a recognised centre of clinical excellence and provides a great range of professional development opportunities to all our staff, helping to support them throughout their career.

“It is our particular strength in offering this scope for development and skills expansion that makes us such an attractive employer, which, along with our work to improve our recruitment processes, has led to us employing and retaining increased numbers of nursing staff.

“It also demonstrates to staff that we have a great deal of confidence in their abilities. We are not complacent, however, and in areas where there are national staff shortages, we will continue to work in partnership with the service and higher education to develop new roles and offer training to fill those gaps.”

Recent figures show NHS Lothian has cut its expenditure on agency nurses to a record low, while new statistics also show that staff have a lower rate of absence due to illness than the Scottish average.

The sickness rate in NHS Lothian is 5.04 per cent, compared with the Scottish average of 5.55 per cent.

NHS Lothian’s human resources director, Jim McCaffery, added: “By working with staff as a good employer, we have been able to reduce the use of agency staff and have introduced a range of family-friendly policies and flexible working options, in partnership with our staff-side organisations, which have had positive benefits in reducing staff absence through illness.”