Number of nurses in the NHS in Wales fell in the last year

Number of nurses in the NHS in Wales fell in the last year
by Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail
walesonline.co.uk
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NURSING leaders last night warned that patient care is suffering because of a lack of nurses.
The number of nursing staff working in the NHS in Wales has fallen in the past year, latest figures show.
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It is thought that recruitment freezes and delays in filling nursing vacancies are behind the fall.
But the 2008 NHS Staff Census, taken in September, revealed that the number of people directly employed by the NHS had risen to more than 71,000.
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This is almost 18,000 more people working in the NHS than 12 years ago.
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Despite another annual increase in staff employed by the NHS – up almost 1% last year compared to 2007 – there have been falls in the number of registered nurses and nurse consultants employed in the NHS in Wales and last year there were 246 fewer nursing assistant and nursing auxiliaries.

*Click here to read the full article: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health-news/2009/03/04/number-of-nurses-in-the-nhs-in-wales-fell-in-the-last-year-91466-23058744/