NHS isn’t trying to recruit consultants – claim
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NHS Highland is being accused of undermining the future of some services at Caithness General by not trying hard enough to fill vacancies for senior practitioners.
Wick Highland councillor Bill Fernie believes the consultant posts remaining unfilled suits the agenda of the health authority which is seeking to implement a major overhaul of how the hospital operates.
Mr Fernie made the claim after he received a Freedom of Information request (FOI) which suggested adverts for locum consultants and physicians were placed just once during 2014.
His intervention came after NHS Highland revealed it has been forced to suspend 24-hour, seven-day-a-week surgical services at CGH due to the latest staffing crisis at the Wick hospital.
Out of the 12 substantive consultant posts, only four are filled, resulting in the decision to cut surgical cover overnight on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Mr Fernie believes the FOI response demonstrates there has not been enough effort made by NHS Highland to fill the vacancies. “I don’t think NHS Highland have been up front about its recruitment policy,” he said. “All they ever say is they can’t recruit people for vacancies at Caithness General.
“My enquiries into this particular aspect is they haven’t tried very hard to recruit and it may be for other reasons.”
He continues: “It may be they are trying to change the service and they don’t want to be up front that they are not really trying.
“The FOI response suggests they have only made one advert for each post at Caithness General in a year.
“It does not appear they re-advertised even though they can’t fill the positions – to me that sounds like a very weak recruitment process.
“Any other employer who was trying to attract staff would continually be advertising posts.”
In the FOI request, NHS Highland revealed it has an annual budget of £75,000 for advertising vacancies, excluding GPs, with an entry in national publications costing a minimum of £2000.
Mr Fernie regrets he did not receive all the answers he sought including in which publications the adverts were placed and details of agencies used to recruit staff.
He believes NHS recruitment processes are inadequate and that there is a need to hire recruitment agencies to make headway on filling the vacancies.
“They have a budget for recruitment which appears to be totally inadequate if that is the standard of advertising they are doing,” he said.
“NHS Highland may say they are advertising in the places where they feel are appropriate to get particular staff, but they’ve failed to hire staff for these positions.
“I am aware there is a national shortage of medical professionals but my own opinion is they’ve failed to recruit and should hand over the job to someone else such as a recruitment agency.”
NHS Highland refuted suggestions it is not doing enough to advertise vacancies.
It insisted that it has re-advertised on a number of occasions for posts such as locum consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology and has used recruitment agencies.
“We consider responses to advertisements on a case-by-case basis and do not have a general policy immediately to re-advertise if we fail to attract responses or to fill vacancies,” he said.
“We also do what we have done in the case of Caithness General, think again.
“And we have concluded, on the basis of extensive past experience, that our record with recruiting and retaining surgeons there is such that the service model we operated was neither safe nor sustainable and that change was necessary.
“So yes, we have re-evaluated the position and have determined that a new model was essential.”
