Health Job Shortages

Although entry to many health sector jobs has become more difficult over the past few years, there are still areas where there are some shortages.  A listing produced recently suggested the following:

◦       Hospital Consultants in: neurophysiology; emergency medicine; genito-urinary medicine; haematology; neurology; occupational medicine; forensic psychiatry; general psychiatry; learning disabilities psychiatry; old age psychiatry.

◦       Hospital Doctors specialising in: anaesthetics; paediatrics; intensive care medicine; general internal medicine (acute); emergency medicine; general surgery; obstetrics and gynaecology; trauma and orthopaedic surgery.

◦       Nurses specialising in: operating theatres; neonatal intensive care.

◦       Radiographers.

◦       Nuclear medicine technologist; radiotherapy technologist.

◦       Cardiac physiologist; clinical neurophysiologist; clinical vascular scientist; respiratory physiologist; sleep physiologist.

Meanwhile a drive to recruit 2,400 more health visitors by 2015 is also underway.

Of course, this does not mean that your local NHS Trust will automatically have vacancies for all these positions!

Shortage of Midwives

NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson recently calculated that England needs an extra 4,500 midwives.

According to information he submitted to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, 608,000 births in England in 1997 had risen to 671,000 by 2009, while the number of full-time midwives had only increased from around 18,000 to just over 20,000.

As mentioned in a previous post, David Cameron has already talked of a need to recruit around 3,000 midwives. However, research I did some time ago suggests that the midwifery shortage mainly affects the South East and Eastern counties of England.

Anecdotal evidence from Scotland suggests that there is a surfeit of midwives training North of the Border.