BOSSES of Fairfield and three other Greater Manchester hospitals are flying staff 7,000 miles across the world to recruit nurses in the Philippines and Europe due to a staffing crisis.

Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which also runs North Manchester General and The Royal Oldham hospitals, and Rochdale Infirmary, is sending senior nurses and human resources (HR) representative to recruit nurses from Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Philippines.

The trust currently has 216 nursing vacancies and says it hopes to recruit a ‘high calibre’ of nurses.

Despite Greater Manchester being home to three universities running large nursing degree courses, NHS bosses said a lack of experienced staff had forced them to make the 7,000 mile recruitment trip to Philippines.

Kimberley Salmon-Jamieson, deputy chief nurse at the trust, said: “We currently have over 4,000 nurses and midwives who work across our four hospital sites and in our community services.

“In the last six months we have held two successful events for newly qualified nurses.

“Despite this, and like many of the trusts across the NHS, we still have vacancies across our nursing workforce which is why we find it necessary to undertake international recruitment to help us find high calibre qualified nurses to join our team.

“In line with other NHS Trusts and to further support our recruitment, we have embarked on a campaign to recruit nurses to the trust that share our values from overseas in Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Philippines as well as in the UK.

“During a previous recruitment event in the Philippines, we successfully recruited a number of experienced nurses, many of whom are still working with us today.

“On the back of this success and to aid in recruiting nurses we are intending to the return to Philippines on June 14."

She added: “Our nurses and midwives have all made a commitment to provide the best possible patient care following the launch last year of our new nursing strategy called the ‘Three Steps to Excellence’ and as part of this strategy there is a large focus on our workforce development.

“The three year strategy seeks to enable the delivery of the very highest standards of nursing and midwifery care on our wards and across our services.”

Newly-qualified nurses interested in working for the trust or those who are wishing to return to nursing should e-mail Jessica.hindle@pat.nhs.uk