WE'RE NOT TRAINING ENOUGH NURSES

Gray says he’s worried after falling 1000 short on new trainees two years in aN

- CHRIS MCCALL

SCOTLAND'S Health Secretary has admitted he is worried by the low number of new nurses being trained each year.

Neil Gray accepted there was a requirement to reduce the pressure on nursing staff to allow them to do their jobs better.

The SNP minister said there was also need to make the job "more attractive" to possible recruits.

The Scottish Government has a target of training 4500 nurses a year but has only managed 3500 in each of the last two years.

It comes after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) last week warned that acceptances onto nursing courses had stagnated, with numbers being accepted still below pre-Covid levels.

Eileen McKenna, an RCN director, said Scotland "does not have the number of nurses that are needed to meet demand for care in health and social care services right now".