Major nurse update as newly-qualified 'can't get job' as NHS spends £3bn on agency staff

A major threshold is set to be hit in a campaign to make a change for newly qualified nurses. The NHS is a 'closed shop' for people who have just become nurses, according to a petition which has seen support soar on the Parliament website.

According to the campaigners even though the NHS is short staffed and spending a fortune on agency nurses, people who have newly qualified are finding it impossible to get jobs. The support has now hit more than 85,000 signatures - and the Department of Health and Social Care has been forced to issued an official response.

If the petition, created by Vicky Marie Adams,and which can be seen here, reaches 100,000 signatures then it could secure a debate in parliament - putting more pressure on the government to explain itself and take action. It says: "Newly qualified nurses report struggling to get NHS jobs due to internal-only adverts and experience requirements. The NHS is short-staffed, but we feel new nurses are blocked from helping. We want a review on access to Band 5 roles and improvements to support into practice.

"Nurses train for years to join the NHS, but when qualified, some find they can't get jobs. We feel too many roles are for internal applicants only or require experience they haven't had the chance to gain. There are many ready to care for patients but are being shut out. We think the system is failing both nurses and the public."

Even though starting salary nurses can't get jobs, a recent Freedom of Information request found that in England, NHS trusts spent £3bn between 2020-2023 and the entire UK spent over £10bn on temporary staff in 2022/23 alone.

The Royal College of Nurses said its analysis, showed three-quarters of nursing vacancies in the NHS in England could be filled if the money had been redirected to hiring permanent staff. Cash spent on agencies could cover the salaries of 30,956 permanent full-time equivalent nurses paid at the top of a Band 5 salary (£34,581).

It added that instead, the recruitment crisis in the NHS is forcing hospitals to spend vast sums on agency staff as services run under the strain of more than 40,000 vacant nursing posts.

RCN Chief Nurse Professor Nicola Ranger said: "Ministers have got their priorities wrong - forcing trusts to spend billions on agency staff while they provide miserly funding for fair pay and nurse education."

The RCN is calling on the government to abolish tuition fees for prospective nursing students and provide loan forgiveness for those who have already paid for their education.

The Department of Health this summer issued a response to the petition - and said it was taking action to try to improve the situation. The DoH said: "While recruitment decisions are a matter for individual employers, NHS England is working with employers, universities and nursing leads to support graduates to find roles as soon as possible.

"This is a complex issue driven by a variety of factors, including the timing of recruitment cycles and the geographical distribution of vacancies compared to newly qualified nurses and midwives. The NHS has also seen improved retention rates meaning employers are less able to over-recruit at risk, compared to previous years.

"Currently, there are approximately 26,000 registered nurse vacancies across the NHS in England, with further vacancies in the social care, voluntary, charitable and independent sectors. However, not all of these vacancies are at entry level (Band 5).

"Although the national position shows that current vacancies exceed student outturn for this year, the level of vacancies by profession, branch and location differs at local level across the country."

In a lengthy response it laid out a number of actions it intends to take including:

"NHS England regional teams are working with education providers and employers across their geographies to develop time-limited recovery plans to ensure job opportunities across the NHS and wider health and care system are maximised to support newly qualified nurses to find a role as soon as possible after qualification and transition into the workplace. This includes addressing the issues reported by students in relation to access to Band 5 roles, prohibitive requirements in job adverts and greater support for students."

Recovery plans include a focus on:

• Working with employers to understand current recruitment plans and actions to release more entry level roles to recruitment.

• Working with employers to ensure that, where appropriate, job descriptions for advertised posts are available to newly qualified nurses. This builds on previous direct communications from the Chief Nursing Office (CNO) for England to all NHS Chief Nurses.

• Assessing options for internal recruitment to more senior roles to release more roles at entry level.

• Options for providing short term employment opportunities, with sufficient support, so students can enter the workforce in advance of more substantive roles becoming available.

• Working with HEIs to engage directly with students, and provide advice and guidance on options, including job opportunities in other regions or sectors they may not have considered.

To see the petiton and readthe full response click here.