Responding to today's publication of the NHS Information Centre's NHS vacancy statistics, Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said:

"Today's figures are worrying as they show that long-term nursing vacancies are rising for the first time in five years. While we are concerned about long-term vacancies, even unfilled short-term vacancies leave nurses under unsustainable pressure and, with higher workloads, too busy to provide the standard of care they would like.

"Rising vacancy rates are due to a combination of factors - more nurses are retiring and fewer are coming out of training. Add to this an increase in demand for nurses, coupled with recent changes in migration policies, restricting the recruitment of nurses from outside of the EU.

"Unfortunately, today's statistics are likely to mask the real picture of even higher vacancies. If a trust does not 'actively' recruit for a post then they do not declare it vacant and it isn't counted in the vacancy data.

"We have been saying for some time there is a worrying mismatch between rising levels of healthcare demand and the numbers of nurses in post needed to give patients quality care."

Source
Royal College of Nursing