Hospital debts spark jobs fear

Feb 19 2007 By Tony Collins, Birmingham Mail

A FURTHER 2,000 West Midland nurses could face unemployment when they qualify in April because of hospital debts, a leading nursing body has warned.

The region's Strategic Health Authority has insisted its NHS Trusts are on course to break even this year, but latest reports claim that West Midland hospitals are £73 million in the red.

The problem was highlighted in April last year, when it was revealed that huge NHS trust debts could leave nearly 5,000 newly-qualified nurses with no jobs to go to.

Ann Leedham Smith, West Midlands Director of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "A further 2,000 nurses will qualify in eight weeks' time and there are no jobs for them to go to.

"Most hospitals have put a freeze on their recruitment budgets to try to manage their debts. There are not enough jobs to go round."

She said the region was swamped with overseas recruitment agencies snapping up nursing graduates who felt they had no chance of getting jobs in the West Midlands.

"The Department of Health is advising trusts to provide newly-qualified nurses with jobs, but it is not forcing them to," she added.

"Many of the trusts are still deeply in debt, although they claim they will break even by the end of the financial year."

An SHA report reveals the two Midland trusts with the heaviest debts are South Warwickshire General Hospital NHS Trust (£10.8 million) and Coventry Primary Care Trust (£10.5 million).

Good Hope, in Sutton Coldfield, which could be taken over by the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust to create one of the largest hospital trusts in Britain, was reported to be £400,000 in the red.

An authority spokesman said it hoped to avert any nursing recruitment crisis if new nurses were "flexible" about the location of their new posts.