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It's the Italian Job at Walsall Manor Hospital as extra nurses taken on

Italian nurses have been taken on at a Black Country hospital following a new recruitment drive – with all new staff due to be in place in September.

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Health bosses revealed earlier this year they would look overseas to recruit registered nurses at Walsall Manor under £3.5 million investment plans.

It has now been confirmed that 30 have been recruited from Italy, along with 50 from within the UK.

A further 21 midwives have also been brought in as part of recruitment by health chiefs at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust.

It comes as bosses have been looking to cut down the amount of money spent on temporary workers.

A report from director of nursing Kathryn Halford to the trust board said: "As a result of the investment in nursing and midwifery agreed by the board, 30 ward nurses and 21 midwives have been recruited from Italy to supplement the 50 nurses recruited from the UK.

"These numbers will ensure that all posts in the wards will be filled by the end of September.

"The first three Italian nurses have already started in the wards.

"The care support workers that were recruited as part of the same process are now in post and working on the wards."

The hospital also agreed to the recruitment of 35 care support workers in a bid to boost numbers of staff.

Bosses at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust have previously revealed they were looking to recruit from abroad due to a nursing skills shortage in the UK.

It is the first time the trust has looked abroad to get in workers in a decade.

It had been initially hoped to see nurses recruited from Ireland in an attempt to get new staff in more quickly.

But the trust was forced to look further afield and received a more positive response from agencies in Greece, Spain and Italy.

The recruitment of new nurses will help bosses to reduce the amount spent on bank, locum and agency workers which has regularly hit £1.5m a month.

Overall, it came to around £20m in 2014/15.

The hospital has been struggling to cope with rising admissions which have seen growing numbers of patients coming in from Staffordshire due to the re-organisation of critical care services at the County Hospital, formerly Stafford Hospital, and at Cannock Hospital.

It comes as Manor chiefs are braced for a £17.7m black hole this year – as they battle to bring finances under control.

The trust which runs the hospital has faced increasing pressures which saw a £12.9m deficit over the previous 12 months.

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