RCN Wales Publishes 2021 Nursing in Numbers Report 

Nursing under pressure - Figures reveal that every week nurses give the Welsh NHS an additional 34,284 hours in overtime  

Today RCN Wales has published its annual briefing on the state of the current nursing workforce in Wales. ‘The Nursing Workforce in Wales 2021’ provides an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the nursing workforce in the nation.  

There are currently 1719 nursing vacancies in the NHS in Wales alone, up from 1,612 in 2020.

Further pressures on nursing can be seen in that NHS Wales spent £69.04m on agency nursing in 2019.This is the equivalent salary spend of 2,691 newly qualified nurses.

In addition, every week nurses give the NHS an additional 34,284 hours in overtime. This equates to 914 full time nurses.

Helen Whyley, Director RCN Wales said

“Nurses are overworked and under pressure, working many hours over their contracts to try and fill the gaps. They are under-resourced to deliver the high standard of care required by their patients and are not being rewarded with fair wages for the complex and safety critical role they do.

“RCN Wales recommends a number of measures the Welsh Government should take to address the shortage of registered nurses in the NHS and independent sector. Without a doubt, the top priority is to pay nurses a fair wage for their complex roles. Workforce shortages will not even start to be resolved until nurses are paid fairly. 

“The Welsh Government also need to urgently develop a national NHS nursing retention strategy to keep nurses working in NHS Wales, publish registered nurse vacancy data to improve workforce planning across all sectors, and extend the nurse staffing legislation to community nursing and mental health inpatient wards in this parliamentary term, to protect patient care. If the Welsh Government is serious about quality patient care they needs to consider our report and implement its recommendations.”  

--ENDS--

Notes to editors:

• Unlike in England, the Welsh Government does not publish national vacancies figures for nursing - despite RCN Wales calling on the Welsh Government to publish this data for many years to improve workforce planning.
• The RCN is the largest professional body for qualified, registered nurses and nursing students with 465,00 members in the UK including over 26,000 members in Wales. The Royal College of Nursing represents nurses and nursing, promotes excellence in practice and shapes health policy.
• For further information please call the RCN Communications and Media Hub on 029 20680769 or 07773 367707.