Overseas staff to ease health recruitment crisis (From Western Telegraph)

Overseas staff to ease health recruitment crisis

German consultants could soon be joining medical staff at Withybush Hospital.

Attracting and recruiting German consultants to Wales was top of the agenda for Welsh Assembly officials who recently took part in a recruitment fair in Berlin.

Peter Jackson, director of medical services for the Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust, along with other representatives from different trusts, attended to fly the flag for Wales and to meet consultants who are interested in working in the UK.

A trust spokesman said: It has to be recognised that the UK relies significantly on overseas staff - almost a third of doctors and one in eight nurses come from overseas. Clearly, the right approach is to train and recruit more staff in the UK, but until numbers of clinical staff expand there needs to be a short term solution, such as the current recruitment drive in Germany and the recruitment of nursing staff from countries like the Phillipines.

Advertisements for consultants have already appeared in the German medical press and it was hoped that the job fair would help to match up those who expressed an interest with potential employers in Wales. Speaking about the fair, Stephen Redmond, director of human resources at NHS Wales, said: We are currently looking at a number of ways of recruiting consultants to Wales. This is the first time that we have tried an international recruitment fair and I am sure that we will be able to learn a lot from being involved in this.

He continued: Germany has a number of consultants who are keen to work in the UK, and with the co-operation of the international placements department of the German government we are hoping to recruit them to Wales.

l Long waits for heart surgery have been eliminated in Wales. No one in Wales is waiting over 12 months for heart surgery, the latest quarterly waiting times figures show. This meets the target agreed with the health service last year, says Assembly Health Minister Jane Hutt.