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Trust recruiting new nurses as part of £300k plan to curb staff shortages

Additional nursing posts are being created by an NHS trust as part of a £300,000 plan to tackle staffing shortages. 
Nurse recruitment

Additional nursing posts are being created by an NHS trust as part of a £300,000 plan to tackle staffing shortages.

Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust has taken the step to address significant gaps in nurses and experience levels highlighted in a Care Quality Commission inspection report in April 2015.

No timescale

The trust does not have a specific timescale for the recruitment of ten whole time equivalent (WTE) nurses, but some of the posts are expected to be filled by a cohort of nurses from the Philippines. These nurses are likely to be in place by early 2017.

It follows a six-monthly skills mix review across the emergency department, maternity and inpatient areas agreed by the trust’s board this month.

Trust deputy director of nursing Fiona Hyett said: ‘There are approximately ten WTE additional posts across the whole staffing skill mix. In other areas we have been changing banding.

‘On the Avon spinal [injuries] ward, we have increased the band 3 shifts, but to do that reduced band 2s.’

Career progression

Ms Hyett said the changes had also provided nurses with career progression opportunities.

She said: ‘The spinal injuries ward has more respiratory associated conditions. Band 3s can support the registered nurse in monitoring these patients which band 2s do not do. We have trained them up in the skills, which is great for the nurses because there is a career progression.’

She said the six-monthly reviews would allow the team to keep an eye on the situation but admitted the trust, like most, was working in a challenging financial environment.

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