The number of full-time position vacancies in the NHS has gone up by 10% since 2016, according to the latest figures released by NHS Digital. Hence to fulfil the requirement, NHS is using foreign doctors especially from India, a special report has suggested.
There were 86,055 advertised full-time vacancies in the NHS in England in the first quarter of 2017. In the same period last year there were 78,112, a 10% increase year-on-year. In March, there were 30,613 vacant full-time positions advertised, compared to 26,424 in the same month in 2016, a rise of 16%. Of the first-quarter vacancies, some 32,929 were for nursing and midwifery posts and 11,155 for medical and dental, which includes doctors.
Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow has one of the largest A&E department in London, but is facing rising demand and a shortage of specialist registrars, middle-ranking doctors, the Sky News reported in an exclusive coverage. Facing competition from other London hospitals that was driving up pay, they decided to recruit directly from India.
Dr Miriam Harris, the clinical lead in the Northwick Park emergency medicine department, told the news channel: "Rather than offering large salaries, which is what we tried to do before and got caught up in a bidding war with all other hospitals in London, we were offering to train people and invest in them and their future."
Lajeesh Vettikat, a specialist A&E registrar from New Delhi, said he had been surprised by the pressure on A&E departments. He told the Sky News: "I had read about the A&E sector - now I know how real the shortage is in terms of doctors and nursing staff.
"This is the biggest A&E department in London and we have about 30 doctors a day here, but the number of patients in A&E is so huge we end up seeing patients in the corridors, in the back of ambulances, in the waiting rooms, in the relatives' rooms.
"It is really worrying but we are working really hard to make sure the patients are safe and the department is safe."
Northwick Park is also training some nurses to become advanced clinical practitioners, an intermediate qualification that lets them take on some doctors' duties. These include prescribing medicines and discharging, which is crucial to freeing up beds and improving the flow of patients through the hospital.
There are also concerns that recruitment is being hampered by uncertainty over Brexit. In June, it was revealed that the number of nurses from the European Union registering to work in the UK has fallen by 96%. It is widely reported that NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said the NHS would have to recruit 2,000 doctors from overseas despite having a target of training 5,000 more home-grown doctors by 2020. Though he is not keen to get doctors from India, he is ignoring the concept of 'demand and supply', which Northwick Park has put in reasonable use. Currently UK has 40,000 doctors of Indian origin.
The Royal College of Nursing has warned that there are around 25,000 vacancies currently and the strain on existing staff is putting the NHS at a "tipping point".
A Department of Health spokesperson reportedly said: "Staffing is a priority - that's why we have invested in the frontline and there are almost 32,400 more professionally qualified clinical staff including almost 11,800 more doctors, and over 12,500 more nurses on our wards, since May 2010."
