A TEAM of nurses based at Whiston Hospital is flying to Spain to recruit nursing staff there to fill vacant posts and help cope with the anticipated winter influx of patients.

Headed by Executive Nurse Joyce Wilcock, the team will visit north, central and southern Spain seeking qualified nurses to work within the hospital trust. So far, St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals Trust has been fortunate not to experience problems in recruiting nurses.

However, at present the hospital has vacant posts due to expansion in facilities, the provision of further operating theatres, and the planned increase in beds to cope with the demand during the winter.

There is an Anglo-Spanish agreement on recruitment. In Spain many qualified nurses who have been trained at universities and educated to degree-level similar to nurse training in this country are unemployed. Consequently, they are taking advantage of the agreement to come to the UK on two-year contracts to gain clinical experience they would not have acquired in Spain.

Special help will be provided to ensure that any difference in clinical skills requirements and language are understood.

All the Spanish nurses will be able to write and speak English, and extra help and guidance will be on hand if they need it.

It is hoped that 20 nurses will start work in Whiston in January, 2002. They will work across the various departments of the hospital.