Major recruitment campaign as East Lancs hospitals employ ‘more nurses than ever before’

Despite a national shortage of qualified nurses, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) has managed to increase its headcount by 157 since April last year, with another 120 more nurses currently in the ‘recruitment pipeline’.

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The influx of new staff, including more than 30 nurses from Italy, Portugal and Romania, comes after NHS inspectors highlighted alarming staff shortages at ELHT last year, after which the trust was placed in special measures.

The record number of nurses, which currently stands at 2,210, is also a result of an increased emphasis on safe staffing across the NHS since the public inquiry into the Stafford Hospital scandal.

Russ McLean, chairman of the Pennine Lancashire Patient Voices Group, said: “I’m absolutely over the moon about these new nursing levels, especially when you consider there’s a national shortage of nurses.

“They’ve obviously done a brilliant job with their recruitment campaign, and it should mean the wards are safer and patients get better care.”

Despite the numbers coming in, there are still vacancies across the trust’s five sites, including the community hospitals in Clitheroe, Accrington and Pendle.

This meant about 10 per cent of shifts did not have the full number of registered nurses in September, although healthcare assistants have been filling most of these roles as recruitment continues.

Bosses are also looking at the possibility of extending the recruitment drive beyond the EU, to countries such as Australia.

Chris Pearson, chief nurse, said: “East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust today employs more nurses than ever before.

“The trust has made a conscious decision to make a significant financial investment to increase the number of nurses on our wards to enable us to continue providing the safe, effective and personal care the people of East Lancashire deserve.”

She said the number of additional clinical services staff, including health care assistants, had also increased by an extra 170 staff since April last year, to a total of 1,246.

Meanwhile, there are 55 extra qualified nurses and seven healthcare assistants in the process of being recruited. And following a recruitment event held earlier this month, a further 64 offers of employment were made to qualified nursing staff who are available to begin work immediately or who will graduate from university in 2015.

However, the recruitment drive, along with an increased reliance on expensive agency staff, has had financial consequences.

Pay budgets have overspent by £3.7 million in the last six months, which has led the trust to be more than £5 million behind its planned surplus at this point in the year.

About half of England’s 140 NHS trusts are currently facing similar problems, but at the last trust board meeting, chief executive Kevin McGee stressed the need to reduce the temporary staffing bill, which rocketed to £11.6 million in the five months August, compared to £9.6 million in the same period last year. This has been another impact of the trust’s drive to ensure safe staffing levels.

The bulk of this spend is going on agency doctors, which suggests the trust needs a similar drive to recruit permanent medical staff.

In relation to nursing numbers, staff have been encouraged to flag up any concerns about shortages on their wards, to enable bosses to identify problem areas in a new ‘Safe Staffing’ report presented to the board each month.

The report published ahead of today’s board meeting raises concern that ten wards missed the 80 per cent target for shifts being filled by the right number of nurses, and details several steps that are being taken to improve performance.

The wards were C1, C3, C4, C11 and Ward 23 at the Royal Blackburn Hospital, the Rakehead Ward at Burnley General, the Ribblesdale Ward at Clitheroe Community Hospital, and all three wards at Pendle Community Hospital.

Mrs Pearson said: “Across our five hospitals as a whole, the latest statistics for September show 97 per cent of night shifts and 89 per cent of day shifts were fully staffed with registered nurses and/or midwives. In addition, the number of care staff for combined day and night shifts exceeded 100 per cent.

“When actual staffing numbers do not meet planned staffing numbers this does not necessarily mean there were nursing safety issues on the ward. All areas are risk assessed taking into account vacant beds, acuity and dependency, and staff are deployed across the trust to mitigate this risk.

“Our ‘Care To Make A Difference’ campaign continues to recruit nurses at fortnightly events and a strategy for overseas recruitment is also being implemented.”