Scotland faces 'exodus of nursing staff' as thousands quit the profession

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Unions have demanded action from the Scottish Government to halt an "exodus of nursing staff" after new figures showed a 13 per cent rise in the number of employees leaving the profession.A total of 2,690 nurses in Scotland left in the 12 months to September 2022, coming off the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) register.This was 314 more than in the previous 12 months, with Scotland seeing a higher increase in nurses leaving the profession than the seven per cent rise recorded in Wales, or the rises of four per cent and three per cenr in England and Northern Ireland, respectively.Meanwhile, there are more than 4,600 vacant registered nursing posts in the NHS in Scotland – meaning approximately 10% of all posts across the country are empty.RCN Scotland director Colin Poolman said the number of nurses quitting showed the "dire state that ministers have allowed nursing to fall into".Daily Record Political Editor Paul Hutcheon will be interviewing Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on February 14th ahead of his party's conference in Edinburgh.

The interview will include questions from Record readers. If you have any questions you would like to pose, please email paul.hutcheon@dailyrecord.co.ukAnd he called on the Scottish Government to not only deliver a “fair pay” settlement for nurses and safe staffing levels, but to also produce a nursing retention strategy that “sets out a plan to tackle the exodus of nursing staff from our profession”.He made the plea as one nurse told how “staff are burnt out, exhausted and now no longer able to keep up with the constant demands for more”.The anonymous staff nurse, who works on an acute hospital ward, added: “We are constantly being asked to give more time, more effort, cover more