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A national and international shortage of nurses and healthcare workers has been mirrored in Guernsey, with vacancy rates of 20%, in some areas, reported earlier this year - but on-island training could help fill the void.
Deputy Gavin St Pier has posed two Rule 14 questions to the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture as “we are not immune from the worldwide shortage of nurses and healthcare workers”.
He suggested “this may be on the factors in the cost of using agency staff more than doubling in 2022”. Health's spending on agency staff last year topped £11.8million, which is more than twice the amount spent in 2021.
The Institute of Health & Social Care offers training courses for nurses and healthcare staff in the island. “The opportunity to train as a registered nurse and gain a degree awarded by Middlesex University is the starting point for many people career within the Guernsey Health Services,” the Institute states online. “They are currently operating out of a purpose built facility at the PEH. Its courses are delivered by a team of highly skilled staff.”
Deputy St Pier said his questions sought to “understand the extent to which that publicly-funded resource is able to help address our nursing shortage”.
Pictured: Deputy St Pier asked for a breakdown of nurses currently training in Guernsey through the Institute.
ESC suggested that the number of nurses that can be trained in Guernsey is constrained by capacity.
In answer to Deputy St Pier’s question about how many spare or unfilled spaces there are in each year of training, the President of ESC, Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen, said:
“Practice-based learning forms not less than 50% of the total learning hours completed over the three years of the nursing degree programme, therefore the number of students who can be supported on the programme at any one time is dictated by appropriate placement capacity within Health and Social Care. Students will usually have three different placements in each of the three years of the programme (nine placements in total).”
She said that, one average, 14 student nurses will join the nursing degree programme each year and that, in September 2022, 17 places were available and 17 students were allocated a space (14 1st years and three 3rd years).
Deputy Dudley-Owen continued: “The intake for September 2023 is expected to be 14 students, which is the average. If there is a lower than average intake in any given year, it is possible to have a higher than average intake the following year if placement capacity allows.
“It will not always be the case that there is an exact match between the number of nursing degree applicants and placement capacity.
“In addition to the nursing degree programme, The Guernsey Institute also supports the Nursing Associate qualification. This enables experienced Health Care Assistants to undertake a foundation degree with the option to top up to a nursing degree leading to Registered Nurse status. The minimum size of each Nursing Associate intake is 6 students, and the maximum is 10.”
Deputy St Pier said he intends to ask further questions because “at one time I think it was intended to double the capacity”.
“It would also be useful to know whether students here can have placements elsewhere and whether that could increase capacity overall,” he concluded.
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