March 2021
NHS recruits ‘thousands’ of overseas nurses to work on understaffed wards
Over 8,000 overseas nurses have been recruited by the NHS in the last year to help fill gaps on overstretched hospital wards. It is reported by The Independent that the NHS is aiming to bring in up to 1,000 nurses a month in the year ahead. This includes more than 300 nurses trained in critical care to work in intensive care units where nurses were caring for significantly more patients than usual during the height of the pandemic. The NHS launched a worldwide search to recruit nurses after the first wave of the pandemic last year – when staffing levels were stretched to cope with the numbers of critically ill patients