August 2021
Nurse vacancies increase across English NHS
The Nursing Times reports the Royal College of Nursing, (RCN) says the Scottish Government must do more to ensure Scotland has enough nurses now and for the future, after ministers released details of their £1bn NHS recovery plan. First minister Nicola Sturgeon and Scotland’s health secretary Humza Yousaf launched the plan on Wednesday, which looks to tackle backlogs arising from the coronavirus pandemic and increase capacity in healthcare over the next five years. On workforce, the plan promised to invest £11 million in new national and international recruitment campaigns and in the creation of a National Centre for Workforce Supply. Specifically on nursing, the plan noted that a “record” 4,206 student nurses had started training in 2020/21 and that the number was “set to rise further this autumn”.