UK hospital to hire 80 Pinoy, European nurses to solve shortage
A hospital in the United Kingdom is in need of 80 nurses from the Philippines and Europe to save their in-patient ward from closure due to a "desperate" shortage of nurses, the BBC reported Wednesday (UK time).
Bromyard Community Hospital in Herefordshire, run by the Wye Valley NHS Trust, is offering a £1,000 (more or less P71,000) cash incentive for nurses interested in "elective, specialities, urgent care, A&E and community hospitals."
Newly-qualified nurses and "nurses who want to come back into the profession" are invited to apply for the posts.
Deputy nursing director Paul Hooton explained that they were not the only trust within the English National Health Service (NHS) to have suffered from the recent lack of nurses.
"To put it into context, we are not the only trust in the country that is desperate to recruit nurses - this is a national problem," he said. "We have been working very hard to get nurses into the UK to support high-quality care. This is one of many incentives we have tried."
A report on Malvern Gazette said Wye Valley had announced that Bromyard would temporarily close the ward on or before September 11, but stopped the plan after staff agreed to working extra hours and shifts.
Trust chief executive Richard Beeken stated that it was only a short-term measure that would hopefully end in a dedicated nursing staff for the 13-bed ward.
“There is a national shortage of nurses - a problem more challenging in a rural county like Herefordshire which does not have the big city appeal of more urban areas of the country," Beeken said.
Janet Davies, head of the Royal College of Nursing, recently told The Guardian that the UK nursing shortage will "start being felt in 2017" after the Home Office raised the minimum salary thresholds for migrant nurses to £35,000.
According to the ruling, nurses who earn less than the amount outside the European Economic Area after six years of employment must leave the UK.
Davies saids the resulting shortage will only leave the country "in an even bigger mess" as more nurses are downbanded and left to rely on food banks and payday loans.
“We go out there and recruit them; we are desperate for nurses, we bring them in and then to say, ‘actually, we don’t want you anymore,’ I think is a real moral dilemma. They’ve given so much,” she said. —Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News
Bromyard Community Hospital in Herefordshire, run by the Wye Valley NHS Trust, is offering a £1,000 (more or less P71,000) cash incentive for nurses interested in "elective, specialities, urgent care, A&E and community hospitals."
Newly-qualified nurses and "nurses who want to come back into the profession" are invited to apply for the posts.
Deputy nursing director Paul Hooton explained that they were not the only trust within the English National Health Service (NHS) to have suffered from the recent lack of nurses.
"To put it into context, we are not the only trust in the country that is desperate to recruit nurses - this is a national problem," he said. "We have been working very hard to get nurses into the UK to support high-quality care. This is one of many incentives we have tried."
A report on Malvern Gazette said Wye Valley had announced that Bromyard would temporarily close the ward on or before September 11, but stopped the plan after staff agreed to working extra hours and shifts.
Trust chief executive Richard Beeken stated that it was only a short-term measure that would hopefully end in a dedicated nursing staff for the 13-bed ward.
“There is a national shortage of nurses - a problem more challenging in a rural county like Herefordshire which does not have the big city appeal of more urban areas of the country," Beeken said.
Janet Davies, head of the Royal College of Nursing, recently told The Guardian that the UK nursing shortage will "start being felt in 2017" after the Home Office raised the minimum salary thresholds for migrant nurses to £35,000.
According to the ruling, nurses who earn less than the amount outside the European Economic Area after six years of employment must leave the UK.
Davies saids the resulting shortage will only leave the country "in an even bigger mess" as more nurses are downbanded and left to rely on food banks and payday loans.
“We go out there and recruit them; we are desperate for nurses, we bring them in and then to say, ‘actually, we don’t want you anymore,’ I think is a real moral dilemma. They’ve given so much,” she said. —Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA News
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