Christchurch is the only main centre increasing its nursing student intake this year as it readies itself for a predicted upsurge in Baby Boomer retirements by the end of the decade
CPIT’s nursing school and Canterbury District Health Board have agreed to increase the February student intake from the usual 110-115 a year to 140 this year, which follows a similar increase in its July intake last year.
At the same time Canterbury District Health Board and community providers have been steadily stepping up the number of new graduates they take on and will be taking a record 165 during 2013.
Mary Gordon, executive director of nursing for Canterbury DHB, said with an ageing workforce there was a need to create nurses now not later.
“When this workforce is going to retire in the next five to six years, we’ve got nurses coming up behind who have five-to-six years experience to replace them.”
Cathy Andrew, head of CPIT’s nursing school, pointed to the soon-to-be released Nursing Council report on nursing supply as another reason to increase student intakes now to meet the future predicted undersupply. She also pointed out that the current low turnover around the country was just a “temporary blip”.
Mary Gordon, executive director of nursing for Canterbury DHB, said its policy of increasingly taking on more students and graduates in recent years had paid off during the quake years because despite each major aftershock leading to a spike in nurse turnover, the board was able to fill the gaps.
“We’ve been able to keep our establishment numbers up without having to drop or use agency nurses and casuals – it's because we’ve been employing grads and supporting them that the workforce is actually quite sustainable.”
She said turnover returned to its pre-quake levels partway through last year.
Kathy Holloway, head of nurse educator group NETS, said along with the Nursing Council report that there were predictions by Workforce Australia that by 2025 that there was going to be a “huge shortage of nurses in Australia and presumably New Zealand”.
“I think first we need a national workforce development policy that is evidence-based and looks at tying supply to demand to meet the needs we know that are coming.”
She said there also needed to be combined conversation between education providers and service providers.
“It’s an absolute partnership that is needed and Canterbury is a great example of that.”
Meanwhile NETS was planning to hold a full-day workshop in April to discuss the issues around projected nursing shortfalls.
“We’ll be asking if we need to increase the supply (of nursing graduates) how do we do that in a sustainable way that maintains standards and ensures competence”.
Andrew said it was quite a juggling act to ensure CPIT had quality clinical placements for more students, but both she and Gordon believed the successful introduction of dedicated education units (DEUs) had helped the sector take on more students.
“We also identified last year with timetabling changes we had capacity within Canterbury for more placements.”
She said there was now about 25 DEUs available in the region and splitting groups would also free up more capacity.
Andrew said that because CPIT had always had such large waiting lists, it was able to fill the extra places. It was also not concerned about flooding the market with Canterbury DHB taking its biggest NETP intake ever – including places in the community health sector.
Gordon said it was able to take on the extra graduates as the DHB did not work from a vacancy model and technically it started the year 26 full-time equivalents over its establishment numbers. By predicting expected turnover and managing supernumerary and annual leave entitlements, the DHB expected to have its nursing budget back on track within three months.
She said Canterbury now had it imbedded it into its culture that it would employ a set number of new graduates each year but employed them on permanent contracts and did not ring-fence dedicated one-year positions for new graduates.
“I’m not going to be employing a nurse on a one-year contract and put the support into them and then not give them a job at the end of it. We’re investing in those nurses.”
She said it also found when new graduates were on one-year contracts that by about nine months the nurses started to get anxious about whether they would get a job.
“We take that away as they are permanently employed”.
Gordon believed the new graduate employment models that DHBs could offer would reflect their size and operational flexibility.
“One solution doesn’t fit all”.
