Health service vacancies crisis


There are now 106,000 vacancies across the NHS in England, including over 44,000 vacancies in nursing, according to figures for the period up to September 2019 released by the NHS Digital health and social care information centre. This marks an increase from one year earlier. (See also page 22.)


Public services union UNISON said that beneath the staffing crisis is a chronic lack of government funding, exacerbated by the scrapping of training bursaries. 


The result is that health workers are working over a million hours a week of unpaid overtime to help the NHS cope with rising demand for care.

https://www.unison.org.uk/news/2019/12/nhs-staff-shortages-increase