A NURSES chief says it could be another two years before enough fully qualified nurses are available to cure a current shortage.

Gill Hunt, director of nursing at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said that nationally there were not enough adult registered nurses to meet demand and that was likely to be the situation for the next two years.

In line with a number of other NHS organisations, it has recruited overseas, employing 19 Romanian, three Italian and six Portuguese nurses.

She said: “We continue to do all we can to recruit locally and work with local universities both in terms of recruiting newly qualified nurses and encouraging nurses who may have left the profession to re-join us with a package of support and education.

“We would welcome enquiries from registered nurses who would like to come and work with us.”

Earlier this week, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, said it had recruited 19 new nurses from Italy because of a national shortage. It was attempting to fill nearly 200 nursing vacancies.

The Royal College of Nurses said more nursing student places were needed at local universities and cited the scrapping of a bursary scheme as potentially putting off applicants from applying for financial reasons.

It also said a succession of NHS pay freezes had encouraged some nurses within the profession to leave.