"Health chiefs say they are considering hiring nurses from the Philippines to plug staffing gaps in north Wales."
After reading this article I wondered why, considering the unemployment rate, you would think they would be queuing up, during the search I found the report below very interesting.
SCHOOL LEAVERS INTO NURSING
Nursing has been a predominantly female
occupation, with women having little career choice in the past, so it has not been
difficult to recruit student nurses. Naish (1996), for example stated that female school
leavers in the past had provided the largest recruitment pool for student nurse education
programmes.
Up until the late 1980s the nursing workforce had been characterised by a pattern of
high wastage, in which those who left and did not return were replaced by a regular
supply of new entrants to training, primarily school leavers (Houltram 1996). Hanson
and Patchett (1986) examined the breakdown of entrants to nursing in the United
Kingdom each year. They found that the highest number of entrants into nursing were
female school leavers accounting for 70%. Current data relating to the breakdown of
successful applicants to student nurse education programmes shows that school leavers
account for merely 36% in 2004/2005 (CATCH 2005) and only 37.5% in 2005/2006
(CATCH 2006). The RCN (2006) states the average age of a nursing student in 2006 is
29 years compared with 18 years in 1986. This is supported by Mulholland (2005) who
states that the age profile of student nurses is changing with just 20% coming straight
from school also indicating an apparent decline in school leavers pursuing nursing as a
career.
Schools of nursing are currently perplexed as to how they can meet the challenge of
increasing school pupils’ interest in nursing as a career. It would appear to be worth
investigating, therefore, school pupils’ perceptions of nursing as a career and to thereby
try to determine why they do or why they do not choose nursing as an occupation,
especially given recent efforts by the nursing profession to attract high academic
achieving school pupils (Sadler 2003). Many believe that recruitment initiatives need to
focus predominantly on attracting more young people particularly school leavers into
the nursing profession (Jackson and Daly 2004, Jones 2005, Brostoff et al 2005). It is
argued that there is a need for more school leavers to choose nursing as a career option
because they are the future of nursing (Snow 2005, Watson et al 2005, Simko and
Simmer 2005, Thacker 2005). This is seen as extremely important in view of the ageing
nursing workforce and the impact that this, their retrial, could have on the increased
health care delivery demands within the United Kingdom.
The full report, if you have time to spare.............
https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/1755/1/FINAL%20-%20SCHOOL%20LEAVERS%20INTO%20NURSING%20A%20STUDY%20OF%20HIGH%20ACA