Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 24 Jun 2003

Vol. 569 No. 3

Written Answers. - Nursing Staff.

Joe Sherlock

Question:

135 Mr. Sherlock asked the Minister for Health and Children if his attention has been drawn to the recent survey on nursing resources which showed that there were some 946 nursing posts vacant at the end of the first quarter of 2003; the steps being taken to deal with the serious shortage of nursing staff; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17557/03]

Minister for Health and Children (Mr. Martin)

The Health Service Employers Agency undertakes quarterly surveys of nursing vacancies, the latest of which is for the year ending 31 March 2003. A copy of this survey will be forwarded directly to the Deputy.

The main points of the survey are: there were 1,543 extra nurses employed in the health service in the year ending 31 March 2003; 1,116 nurses were recruited from abroad in the year ending 31 March 2003; 307 nurses work every day in the hospitals as agency nurses; the vacancy rate now stands at 2.6% nationally.

While all sectors reported that recruitment was well ahead of resignations-retirements, employers reported that 946 vacancies existed at 31 March 2003. However, the combination of utilising agency nurses and overtime adequately compensates for this shortfall. The current vacancy rate of 2.6% has been declining steadily in recent years and could be considered to be a normal frictional rate, given that there will always be some level of movement due to resignations, retire ments and nurses availing of opportunities to change employment and locations.

The recruitment and retention of adequate numbers of nursing staff has been a concern of this Government for some time and a number of substantial measures have been introduced in recent years. These include: an increase of 70% in the number of nursing training places from 968 in 1998 to 1,640 in 2002; payment of fees to nurses-midwives undertaking part-time nursing and certain other undergraduate degree courses; improved scheme of financial support for student paediatric nurses; payment of fees and enhanced salary to nurses-midwives undertaking courses in specialised areas of clinical practice; abolition of fees for "back-to-practice" courses and payment of salary to nurses-midwives undertaking such courses; financial support to State enrolled nurses working in the Irish health service wishing to undertake nursing conversion programmes in the United Kingdom; and 40 sponsorships are made available each year for certain categories of health service employees wishing to train as nurses.

I would like to illustrate the improvements that have taken place in nursing numbers generally in recent years. In 1998, there were 26,611 whole-time equivalent nurses employed in the public health system. By the end of 2002 this figure had reached 33,395. This is an increase of almost 6,800 – or over 25% – during the period. It is clear from these figures that the recruitment and retention measures I introduced are proving to be very effective.