Ayrshire health chiefs won't be able to hire new registered nurses until September 2023, it has been revealed.
This is expected to force NHS Ayrshire and Arran to turn to existing staff at other health boards if they want to bring in more staff, as others do the same.
Due to the increased needs of NHS boards across Scotland, all newly qualified nurses have already been taken on.
The next cohort of new nurses will only be available when the current students graduate in a year's time.
NHS Ayrshire and Arran Human Resources Director Sarah Leslie highlighted the issue at a meeting of Ayrshire and Arran Health Board on Monday morning.
Staffing has been a major issue, both in terms of recruiting new staff and retaining existing employees.
Ms Leslie said: "This is essentially a high risk to the health and care system, due to the importance of ensuring we have a supply of workers to stabilise our current services."
She pointed out that the issues were not confined to Ayrshire and Arran: "There are known national and international shortages of health and care staff.
"It is a sobering fact that there will be no new registered nurses in NHS Scotland until September 2023 as all newly qualified nurses have been appointed to NHS Scotland positions."
This has the effect of making recruitment a 'cyclical process' where health boards are taking on staff from other boards - in effect 'fishing from the same pool'.
She said that the challenges facing the NHS had been noted, particularly where they are working at full capacity, the resultant impact on staff, unfilled posts and the high costs of using locums and agency nurses.
It was stated that the closure of the covid test and protect scheme had allowed the service to redeploy almost all of the staff assigned to it.
A small proportion retired or were added to a staff bank - consisting of skilled experienced workers who are able to work flexibly and often at short notice.
Ms Leslie reiterated the lack of graduate nurses meant there was no 'cavalry' coming to their aid.
The increase in the number of new staff taken on since the pandemic was stark.
In 2019/20 a total of 888 new staff were recruited. In 2021/22 this had risen to 3640, within the board's existing resources.
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