Where have all the nurses gone?
Jane Deith
It started with a very basic question from my editor at File on 4: why haven't we got enough nurses? Where did they all go?
It turned out none of us knew the answer. I thought maybe no-one wanted to be nurses any more. Long hours, low pay, little thanks....
But I was wrong. Many many people want to take nursing degrees. Yet we are flying over thousands of nurses from the continent. Strange.
Until you learn that four years ago hospital trusts either seeking to cut posts or balance their books to win foundation status, started 'ordering' fewer nurses from universities.
It takes 3 years to train a nurse and the NHS is only now reversing the trend of cutting the numbers being trained - so we're still in a mess.
Nurses from countries like Portugal are welcome and highly trained. But they come at a cost - in Luton & Dunstable Hospital's case, at £5,000 on top of their salary - in recruitment fees, English lessons and free accommodation to start them off.
Sometimes a simple question leads to some very interesting findings! The programme is here - http://www.janedeith.com/investigative