Nurses prepare a Covid vaccination (Stock image)
(Picture: PA Archive)One in seven nursing positions in London are vacant, according to new data, with more than 11,300 posts unfilled at the end of September.
NHS Digital data released on Thursday showed that 15.2 per cent of registered nursing posts were vacant in the capital - a rise of over 2 per cent in a year.
It comes as NHS nurses prepare to stage industrial action in four London trusts on December 15 and 20 in a dispute over pay. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has demanded a pay rise of 5 per cent above inflation, which Health Secretary Steve Barclay has claimed is “not affordable”.
Thousands of operations and appointments could be cancelled as a result of the strikes, though they will not affect emergency care.
The NHS figures showed that over a fifth (22.9 per cent) of mental health nursing positions were vacant, the second highest national total after the South East.
There were 133,446 FTE vacancies across the health service at the end of September, up 0.3 per cent from 133,104 at the end of June, according to new figures from NHS Digital.
London had the highest number of overall vacancies with 31,756 across acute, ambulance, community, mental health and specialist services – up 3 per cent from 30,839 at the end of June.
Unions and medical experts have said that staffing shortages pose a serious risk to the NHS’s ability to deliver care to patients. Health leaders have called on ministers to produce a long-term workforce plan to tackle the gaps.
Dr Latifa Patel, British Medical Association representative body chairwoman, said the Chancellor’s announcement in the autumn statement of a long-term workforce plan was an “encouraging step” to tackling staffing gaps.
But she added: “The persistent quarterly increase in unfilled NHS secondary care posts – which now stand at the highest number since June 2018 when the dataset began – is a clear sign that the Government is nowhere close to getting a grip on the NHS workforce crisis.
“Persistent staffing shortages have led to punishing workloads for staff and growing waiting lists for patients, many of whom are facing agonising waits to get the care they need.”
Reacting to the figures, RCN Director for England, Patricia Marquis, said: “This is precisely the reason why our members have decided to strike - because the workforce gaps and being underpaid have made care unsafe.”
The shortage in staff comes as the NHS attempts to work through a record backlog in treatment, with over 7 million people waiting for routine care.
Ambulance chiefs have also warned that patients were coming to “significant harm” as a result of delays in them being handed over to A&E, with more than one in four ambulances waiting outside London hospitals as they arrive with ill patients. The target is for handovers to be completed within 15 minutes.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “There are record numbers of staff working for the NHS, including 9,300 more nurses and almost 4,000 more doctors compared to September 2021.
“The overall number of available posts is increasing as we expand services to bust the Covid backlogs and provide the best possible care to patients.
“We are giving the NHS an extra £6.6 billion, on top of previous record funding, and will publish a comprehensive workforce strategy next year to recruit and retain more staff, with independently verified forecasts for the number of doctors, nurses and other professionals that will be needed in five, 10 and 15 years’ time.”
