Stafford Hospital taking on 29 nurses to help plug shortage
A total of 29 new nurses will be taken on at Stafford Hospital to help plug a shortage, it has been announced.
New nurses will join the wards at the Weston Road hospital over the next two months.
Health bosses were yesterday told that the hospital's nursing shortage had moved from an amber alert to amber-red.
Val Jones, director of quality and safety at Stafford and Surrounds Clinical Commissioning Group, said many of the nurses would be newly qualified because of the difficulty in recruiting experienced staff.
"Newly-qualified nurses are better than no nurses at all," she said. The hospital is also considering giving mature staff who are thinking about leaving an incentive to stay.
Earlier this month, a Royal College of Nursing report claimed patients were being left to suffer because of a national shortage of 20,000 nurses, with one in 20 positions now unfilled.
Yesterday's meeting also heard 18 cases of superbug C. diff had been recorded at Stafford Hospital so far this year – 50 per cent over its target. But it is believed the majority of patients affected are bringing the infection into the hospital rather than contracting it on the wards. The over-prescription of antibiotics by GPs is being blamed for the high incidence of the bug.
Now special measures are being introduce to try to significantly cut the number of antibiotic prescriptions being handed out. C. diff mostly occurs in people who have recently had a course of antibiotics and are in hospital. As well as killing off infections, antibiotics also kill many of harmless bacteria that live in the gut, allowing C. diff to thrive.
Stafford Hospital was given a tolerated target of 12 cases for this year. But by the end of September, 14 had been recorded, followed by another three in October and one so far this month.
Val Jones, director of quality and safety at Stafford and Surrounds Clinical Commissioning Group, said there was a link between the latest two patients to contract the bug on one ward but that there were no links between the other 16.
She said the use of antibiotics and proton pump inhibitors – drugs taken to reduce the amount of acid made by the stomach – was a 'major factor' in the latest figures.
