NHS nursing shortages: retention is the biggest problem

About a third of newly graduating nurses in the United Kingdom do not register to practise, and no one knows why. In their two part discussion of the nursing crisis in the NHS (pp 538, 541) Finlayson and colleagues document the changing structure of the nursing profession in the UK, with fewer nurses trained in the UK and a rising average age. Staffing shortageswhich raise costs and reduce moraleare most acute in hospitals in London and other inner cities. The government is trying to tackle the major underlying causes by increasing pay, recruiting extra nurses to help relieve heavy workloads, extending the clinical roles of nurses, and trying to counter racism and violence and foster family friendly policies. But, argue the authors, these initiatives may not be enough. Workforce issues are still nowhere near the top of managers' agendas.

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