MSP WELCOMES STAFFING DRIVE TO BOOST NURSE NUMBERS

Published date : 01 Dec 2016

Mid Fife and Glenrothes MSP Jenny Gilruth has welcomed an announcement by NHS Fife that nearly 90 new nurses have been appointed as part of a drive to boost staffing numbers across the Kingdom.

As part of an event hosted by the Board’s Director of Nursing, Helen Paterson, the new recruits were welcomed to NHS Fife and introduced to many of their new colleagues and key personnel they will be working alongside in the coming months and years.

The new appointments, many of whom are newly qualified having completed training in September, were welcomed as part of plans unveiled by Mrs Paterson at the meeting of the NHS Fife Board on 30 August 2016, which will see 130 new nurses recruited in 2016/17.

Some 89 have now been appointed and have taken up posts across both community and acute care, with just over half working within Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy.

An area of particular success has been in the recruitment of 15 newly qualified nurses in mental health; an area where recruitment has proven difficult in recent years.

Ms Gilruth said she hoped the appointments would help reduce NHS waiting times as she “regularly hears about this issue from constituents”.

Welcoming the new nurses to their posts, NHS Fife Director of Nursing, Helen Paterson, said: “I am delighted to see our new nurses taking up post in Fife. The nursing role has changed considerably over the past 20 years or so and will continue to evolve as technology allows our nursing staff to become more mobile and provide a greater balance of care in our communities.

“Our nursing teams work incredibly hard and the new staff we welcome today will not only support our existing teams to provide even better care in the short-term; some will no doubt go on to become our nursing leaders of the future, driving improvement in the care we provide to patients in the years and decades to come.”

Local Reporters, HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE, COMMUNITY