Walsall Manor Hospital trust needs 100 more nurses
Walsall Manor Hospital needs to recruit 100 nurses and 70 care support workers, it was revealed as a boss admitted there are not enough staff.
Interim director of nursing Rachel Overfield made the frank admission that the trust 'does not have enough nurses' and were relying too heavily on premium rate agency staff and bank staff – who are there to provide cover.
But the nursing chief declared the problems were around the difficulty in finding qualified people rather than the trust not allocating enough money.
Ms Overfield said: "We don't have enough nurses. I am actually happy with what we are budgeting for the wards, I am not here saying we aren't spending enough money.
"We have just got into a position where there are too many vacancies. We need 100 registered nurses across the wards and departments leading us to use bank and agency staff.
"But what is more concerning is we haven't got enough bank and agency staff either."
In November Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust booked in 3,083 bank and agency shifts.
The number fell to 2,670 in December but Ms Overfield warned this was not because less temporary staff were needed.
She said: "I woudn't take too much comfort in the fact numbers went down in December. This is far more a reflection of the fact we were unable to fill the shifts rather than the fact we didn't request them.
"In December it is harder to find them because they won't get paid before Christmas.
"Emergency departments are concerning me the most, we have quite a few vacancies there. We also have quite a few in the neo natal department."
Last spring the hospital recruited 55 nurses from abroad but Ms Overfield admitted that would not be a solution this year. She added: "The overseas market is drying up.
"I am not advocating overseas recruitment at the moment especially where we have got gaps.
"We need to be more inventive, we have got to think outside of the box. We have been quite traditional recruiting on NHS Jobs and the usual suspects.
"I think we should be recruiting at higher bands. One of the reasons we lose people is for promotion. We need to find a way to keep staff we recruit and attract people with experience. We shouldn't be frightened of using higher bands to do that."
