Written Answers. - Nursing Staff.
Breeda Moynihan-Cronin
Question:
83
Mrs. B. Moynihan-Cronin
asked the
Minister for Health and Children
the number of additional nurses recruited to date from here and abroad arising from the recruitment and retention initiative announced by him on 29 November 2000.
[14817/01]
Jim O'Keeffe
Question:
84
Mr. J. O'Keeffe
asked the
Minister for Health and Children
the number of vacant nursing positions in the country; and the estimated shortfall over the next five years.
[14724/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 83 and 84 together.
The Health Service Employers Agency, HSEA, undertook a survey of nursing vacancies at 31 January 2001. A copy of this survey will be forwarded directly to Deputies O'Keeffe and Moynihan-Cronin.
The total number of nursing vacancies reported was 1,315. When account is taken of the service of agency nurses, 423 per day, and overtime working, equivalent to 592 nurses per day, the net vacancy situation pertaining at 31 January 2001 stands at 300. The gross number of vacancies reported for the Eastern Regional Health Authority region, excluding the learning disability sector, was 1,148.79.
The survey shows that a total of 4,226 nurses were recruited in the year ending 31.01.01 and that a total of 2,954 resigned/retired in the same period. Accordingly, the recruitment of nurses continues to run strongly ahead of the numbers leaving with a net increase of 1,272 nurses in the system. The number of nursing vacancies existing nationally on 30 September 2000 had fallen by 5% by 31 January 2001.
The ongoing recruitment of nurses from abroad is also impacting positively on the vacancy situation. A total of 1224 working visas-work authorisations were issued to nurses from non EU countries between June 2000 and April 2001. A number of hospitals in the Dublin area are reporting significant improvements in their position. For example, Beaumont Hospital, which at one stage last year was short 130 nurses, now has a full complement of nursing staff. The Mater Hospital is on target to reduce its vacancies to a low single figure by the end of next month.
With regard to ensuring an adequate supply of nurses and midwives to staff our health service into the future, the Commission on Nursing identified a need to strengthen the workforce planning functions in my Department. In response, my Department set up a Study of the Nursing and Midwifery Resource in December 1998. The aim of the project is to analyse the present position with regard to the nursing and midwifery workforce, to devise a system for the projection of future needs and to plan how these needs may be met. A steering group chaired by my Department's chief nursing officer is overseeing the project.
The steering group published an interim report in September 2000 and the £5 million recruitment-retention initiative announced by me on 29 November last was my immediate response to recommendations contained in the report. This followed the introduction in February 2001 of permanent part time and flexi time arrangements which should attract more nurses back into the system. The steering group has identified as an urgent priority the refinement of systems and processes used to supply essential information to ensure that forecasts for future nursing and midwifery requirement are feasible and improve over time. Highlighted in the interim report are the inadequacies of existing databases to yield reliable information on which to base forecasts. To address this, work is progressing on the development of a new personnel, payroll, attendance recruitment system, PPARS, that will capture essential data on each individual and post within the health service. The PPARS project is a fundamental building block in developing dependable, reliable and robust quality information to forecast human resource requirements for the health service in the future.
Increasing the annual intakes of nursing students is a central component of my overall strategy for addressing the nursing shortage in the medium to long-term. In 2000 there was a 25% increase in the number of nurse training places, from 1,200 to 1,500. The interim report of the steering group recommended that the annual intake of nursing students should continue at this level until at least 2003. My Department has accepted this recommendation. In addition, with a view to increasing the number of general nursing training places in Dublin, funding has been provided to St. Michael's Hospital, Dún Laoghaire, to commence the pre-registration nursing diploma programme in autumn 2001 with an annual intake of 40 students. A total of 1,540 training places are thus available this year.
