This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Over 80,000 NHS posts vacant, NHS Digital finds
More than 86,000 NHS posts were vacant between January 2017 and March 2017, statistics from NHS Digital show.
NHS Digital found that the number of vacancies rose by almost 8,000 compared to the year before.
Nurses and midwives were the posts with the most shortages, with 11,400 vacant positions in March 2017. The figures suggest there were 30,613 full-time equivalent vacancies in England advertised in the month of March 2017 - the highest month on record since collection of this data began in February 2015.
The Department of Health said staffing is a priority and more money is being invested in frontline staff.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: “Staffing is a priority - that is why we have invested in the frontline and there are almost 32,400 more professionally qualified clinical staff including almost 11,800 more doctors, and over 12,500 more nurses on our wards since May 2010.”
Janet Davies, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “At the very moment the NHS needs to be recruiting more nursing staff, we learn the number is falling and the NHS finds itself advertising for more jobs we know it cannot fill.
"A lethal cocktail of factors is resulting in too few nurses and patient care is suffering. More people are leaving nursing than joining - deterred by low pay, relentless pressure and new training costs.
"For the sake of patient safety, the Chancellor must scrap the cap on pay and help to fill the tens of thousands of vacant nurse jobs.”
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