EAST Lancashire could face a critical shortage of nurses by the year 2000 according to a survey published today.

A Royal College of Nursing study warns that national trends point towards a desperate and escalating lack of registered nurses for the 21st century.

But health care trusts in East Lancashire have already instigated projects to counteract potential problems and, hopefully, keep health care standards in East Lancashire at a top level.

National trends show that:

numbers of new nurses plummeted by 39 per cent over the last nine years

more than a quarter of registered nurses will retire by the year 2000

more nurses are leaving the National Health Service - six per cent in 1994/95 and four per cent in 1993/94

nurses are increasingly working longer hours, often unpaid.

And 20 per cent of nurses in the North West agree that they would leave their profession if they could.

Details of the survey will form part of the evidence as the Royal College of Nursing calls for a national pay award for nurses and an overview of recruitment and retention programmes. Director of Nursing and Quality for Burnley Healthcare Trust Mr John Hyde, said: "Our nursing numbers have increased recently not decreased but we are well aware of the trends and there is a lot of truth in what the Royal College of Nursing is saying.

"We do not have an emergency at the moment but numbers of nurses will decline towards the year 2000 and we have to be prepared for that.

"We are setting up a new training project aimed at healthcare support work and hopefully with forward thinking, we can weather the trends."

Blackburn Healthcare Trust's Director of Nursing and Quality Mr Richard Gildert says he too is preparing for the worst.

He added: "There is no doubt that we in East Lancashire are beginning to feel the pinch in declining numbers of nurses.

"We have more difficulty now in recruiting nurses and we are working on improving ways to recruit and retain our nursing staff.

"We have also undertaken a 'back to work' project for nurses who may want to resume their careers after having families and we will continue to look at the whole system of how our nurses work."

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