Friday 24 August 2007

New nurses left jobless by budget squeeze

Thousands of newly qualified nurses are facing unemployment because of hospital cutbacks, with vacancies at their lowest for 10 years - reports the Daily Telegraph.

New NHS Vacancy survey figures have revealed how difficult it is for nurses, physiotherapists, scientists and doctors to find jobs.


The highest vacancy rate was among consultants, with 1.2% of jobs empty compared with 0.4% in trainee nursing.

There are currently 5,000 newly qualified nurses who cannot find a job and half of the 2,413 newly qualified physiotherapists have not found permanent posts.

More than 20,000 jobs have been cut in recent years as managers struggle to bring NHS finances back into balance.

Dr Peter Carter, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "This is not a 'good news' story for nurses.

''Vacancy rates appear to have reached their lowest levels for years but we fear that has been achieved only by widespread freezing and deleting of posts by NHS trusts desperate to balance the books.

"Thousands of newly qualified nurses - costing taxpayers millions of pounds to train - cannot find jobs this year yet at the same time the workload on the wards and in the community remains high.

"It's time for the Government to put in place a long-term workforce strategy that prevents the feast or famine characteristic of the NHS job market in recent years."

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