HOSPITAL trusts in the Bradford district say they are working hard to improve nursing staff levels.

Both Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Airedale NHS Foundation Trust are running initiatives to attract new nurses and retain those already employed in the district.

Jobs starting in September have just been offered to 30 newly-trained nurses, said Pat Campbell, director of human resources at the Bradford Trust. Airedale made 36 nursing job offers in November.

The current nursing vacancy rate at Bradford Teaching Hospitals is 13.2 per cent – which is above the national average of 12.2 per cent – but Trust bosses say the figure is in part due to new units opening at the hospital.

“In line with other Trusts nationally, nursing recruitment remains particularly challenging for us, but we are focused on building on our reputation as an excellent place to train and encouraging the next generation of nurses to join our Trust,” said Ms Campbell.

“We recently launched a social media campaign for nurses and have regular open days, have offered over 30 positions to newly-trained nurses who will join us in September and are taking on a group of trainee nursing associates who will support our ward teams.

“We provide nurse development programmes and support, supervision and mentoring for all newly-registered nurses.”

The Bradford Trust also has an internal transfer system allowing nurses to move jobs more easily in-house, so they can stay and develop their careers. It also funds qualifications at local universities.

“We work closely with the University of Bradford and Bradford College to support new intakes of nursing students, still have overseas nurses joining us and offer flexible working wherever possible plus retirement options so we can retain the skills and experience of our long-serving nurses,” said Ms Campbell.

Airedale NHS Foundation Trust has its next recruitment day on Saturday, February 10, from 10am to 3pm for any registered and student nurses to go along, meet their potential colleagues and employers and bring their CV.

Jill Asbury, director of nursing at Airedale, said the Trust was promoting Airedale as a “fantastic” place.

She said: “We continue to promote Airedale as a fantastic place to work and live, and we work hard to retain our staff as well as giving them great opportunities for development.

“We are currently running a series of recruitment events, aimed at registered nurses and student nurses, the first of which was in November.

“Candidates were able to meet our senior nursing team, discuss career opportunities and tour our wards and clinical areas, and on the back of interviews at the event we made 36 employment offers.”

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To get more details about the recruitment day, go to facebook.com/ANHSFTRecruitment/ or contact Kelly Baxter on 01535 294878.

NHS Digital figures last week revealed the NHS is “haemorrhaging” nurses with one in 10 now leaving the health service each year. More than 33,000 walked away last year. The figures showed a rise in leavers nationally of 20 per cent since 2012-13, meaning there were now more leavers than recruits.