More than a third of the country’s new nurses are competing for just 53 positions currently on offer through the Auckland District Health Board.
The Ministry of Health has confirmed that 1337 new graduates have applied for positions using the nursing Advanced Choice of Employment (ACE) system. Just over 500 of these are seeking jobs through Auckland DHB.
A further 300 plus are seeking jobs with Canterbury District Health, which has close to 100 places available in its NETP (nursing entry to practice) and NESP (new entry to specialist practice, mental health, and addictions) programmes (NB NETP places include jobs with primary health care and residential aged care employers).
Dr Paul Watson, a senior nursing advisor at the Office of the Chief Nurse, said ACE applications are up on the same time last year, when there were 1232 applicants for new graduate programme places. In last year’s round, 723 new graduates (59 per cent of applicants) were successful by December in gaining a NETP or NESP place compared to 637 the same time the year before. A graduate survey indicated that by four months after graduation, 75 per cent of November 2012 graduates were nursing.
Margaret Dotchin, director of nursing for Auckland District Health Board, which has the country’s largest registered nursing workforce – about 2,500 FTEs (full-time equivalents), said the DHB had received 507 applications for 53 positions (47 NETP and 6 NESP).
She said the number of new graduates it takes is based on a vacancy model.
“We work hard to identify vacancy as early as possible prior to each intake and then also continue to recruit new graduate nurses into the NETP programme up until the start date of the programme in February (as vacancies arise).”
Based on intake numbers in recent years, Dotchin expected Auckland would end up taking 65 into its NETP programme and further NESP graduates. Last February, the DHB’s final intake grew over the summer from 58 to 74 new graduates and it took an additional 38 NETP nurses in September from nearly 300 applicants, making a total of 112 graduates employed in 2013.
The country’s second largest district health board, Canterbury, with a FTE nursing workforce of 2438, this year stepped up its recruitment of new graduates to take about 160 new graduates across the year.
Becky Hickmott, the DHB’s new graduate coordinator, said the DHB was looking to increase that number again and take on a record nearly 100 new graduates in February 2014. The number of applications had also nearly doubled in recent years, with more than 300 applications received for the February intake – including a number from the North Island, with some seeking to follow partners who had found work in the Christchurch rebuild.
Hickmott said the DHB did not formally ring-fence new graduate place but there was an expectation that most medical and surgical wards would take two nurses, and the DHB was prepared to be ‘overstaffed’ for a short period to ensure it could take on the full cohort. She said the DHB was very conscious that 60 per cent of its workforce was aged over 45 and 30 per cent over 55 and that it needed to recruit the next generation.
Nationwide new graduate interviews have now been completed and district health boards are selecting their preferred candidates, who will be told whether they have been successful on November 20. The majority of applicants are November graduates, sitting state finals on November 19, but some will be mid-year graduates applying for a second time, with only half of those graduates having found jobs by the end of July.
Watson said the Ministry expected to know shortly the number of positions available for graduates in February 2014.
In early December, graduates unsuccessful in the first round go back into the ACE ‘talent pool’ that the DHB can call on to fill any vacancies arising before NETP and NESP programmes begin in January/February 2014.
Watson said last year the Ministry of Health did not capture data on how many extra positions were filled over the summer from graduates in the talent pool. But this round it would be asking DHBs to advise the Ministry on any subsequent appointments from the talent so it would have a fuller picture of how many late vacancies emerged over summer.
