THE recruitment crisis affecting both the maternity unit at Dr Gray’s in Moray and the children’s ward at St John’s Hospital in Livingston exemplify the kind of impossible staffing conundrums facing NHS managers. Neither is a question of funding, since the money is there to hire any suitable candidates that came forward. But how do you fill a post if no one applies?
In these particular instances neither NHS bosses nor the Scottish Government is really to blame.
In the case of St John’s, which closed its children’s ward to inpatient admissions yesterday for the summer, the health board tried in vain to attract the eight extra paediatric consultants needed to provide safe round-the-clock cover. Only five of the vacancies were filled despite a national and international recruitment drive.
Read more: Mothers face 60-mile trip to give birth amid maternity staff crisis
Similarly in Moray, the annual changeover in junior doctors has left bosses grappling with a sudden shortage of trainee medics in paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology at Dr Gray’s.
These are generally popular specialisms, so the shortfall is more about geography than the job. Across the NHS, rural areas battle to attract the staff they need. General practice is probably the banner example, where even golden hellos worth £20,000 each have not been enough to lure trainees to some remote, rural and deprived practices.
That is not to say that there have not been some mistakes at national level when it comes to workforce planning, however. In 2011, the Scottish Government cut the number of funded medical school places for Scottish students to tackle the “vast oversupply” of medical graduates. At the time, five per cent of graduates were leaving university without a foundation placement in hospital. But perhaps a better idea would have been to increase hospital training places, not cut medical school places? By 2016, an extra 50 medical school places were being created for students from deprived backgrounds and a new graduate medical school, based in St Andrews, will also train 50 students a year. Student nurse places were also cut at the peak of the recession, only to be recently reversed.
Read more: Mothers face 60-mile trip to give birth amid maternity staff crisis
Then there is the issue of the pay cap. With figures this week revealing that, UK-wide, more nurses and midwives are leaving the profession than joining for the first time on record, it is difficult to see how the bill for agency staff can go anywhere but up. But paying a fair wage would be a start.
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