Eastern European nurses making up staffing shortfall in the UK
Eastern European nurses making up staffing shortfall
Nurses have been recruited from Croatia and Romania to boost the workforce at Walsall Manor Hospital.
The trust in charge of the hospital has been forced to look abroad in order to cope with a national shortage of nursing staff.
Nurses from Greece, Spain and Portugal have also come over to fill 36 new posts as part of a £3.5 million recruitment drive.
Earlier this year, the majority of another 85 posts were filled by staff from Italy.
Wendy Lear, head of nursing at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “The decision to recruit from overseas was in response to the national nursing shortage and to boost the numbers of nurses recruited from this country.
“To reassure patients and their families – all of the overseas nurses can speak English, albeit with an accent. It wouldn’t have been in anyone’s best interests to recruit nurses who didn’t have a good command of English.
“Some nurses have started work already and all will be in place by the end of September.” -wrote the expressandstar
