Recruitment to fill nursing vacancies underway at University Hospital Limerick
AROUND a fifth of nursing positions at University Hospital Limerick are currently unfilled, new figures have revealed.
To fill the gaps and to ensure the continuity of patient care in Clare and across the Mid-West, the hospital has had to resort to the use of agency workers and overtime.
A spokesperson for the UL Hospitals group confirmed there is currently a vacancy rate of approximately 20% among nursing staff.
“We are currently implementing Safer Staffing in our ED before the initiative is rolled out in our Model 2 hospitals,” said the spokesperson.
“As set out in the HIQA Report (published last month), the ceiling of funded posts in our ED has been raised due to the Safer Staffing initiative. This is not unique to UHL and vacancy rates in our ED will reduce in the coming weeks as the extra staff to implement Safer Staffing take up post,” they added.
UHL says it is recruiting on a continuous basis for both staff nurses and promotional posts.
In June, six new staff nurses took up roles in the emergency department and a further 37 staff nurses are due to start work at UHL in the coming months.
“These include nursing students graduating from our academic partner at the University of Limerick and staff recruited through our international campaign who are currently undergoing visa and the RCSI examination process,” said the spokesperson.
The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) inspection report, which was published last month shows that 27.52% of the emergency department’s nursing staff positions were unfilled, meaning the equivalent of 34.62 full-time nursing positions were unfilled.
The spokesperson added that UHL has received approval for a total of 21.5 new nursing posts in its emergency department, under the Safer Staffing Nursing initiative.
“These posts will be filled in the coming weeks. In addition, we are recruiting a number of Advanced Nurse Practitioners for our ED,” the spokesperson said.