A Brighton hospital trust has welcomed the first of 20 doctors recruited from India and 30 nurses from Ireland this week.
Dr Sumit Jain started work as a paediatrician at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Eastern Road, Brighton.
He was one of a score of middle-grade doctors handpicked when a team of consultants from the trust flew to Mumbai to conduct interviews in July.
Today two Irish nurses joined Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.
They are working in the Haematology/Oncology Ward and Level 8a West at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
A further 30 nurses from Ireland will be joining the trust by the end of the year.
A spokesman for the trust said: “There is a national shortage of middle-grade doctors.
“Last year we advertised in various overseas publications in places like Australia and South Africa and didn’t get much of a response for our money so the Indian initiative was set up.
“A group of consultants went out from different specialties – obstetrics and gynaecology, neo-natal, anaesthetics, cardiac, accident and emergency, general medicine and paediatrics.
“This was set up by Hays recruitment agency earlier this year.”
She said that there were all sorts of reasons for the need to recruit nurses from Ireland.
The cost of living in Brighton and Hove was one factor which also affects hospitals in London.
The spokesman added: “The bulk recruitment of Irish nurses is not a new thing in the NHS.”
Trust chief executive Duncan Selbie said that a team of nurses went to the Royal College of Nursing National Recruitment Fair yesterday and on Wednesday.
He said that after the trust’s success at the fair last year – when 20 nurses were taken on – this year staff took the details of more than 500 nurses as potential recruits.
Mr Selbie said: “Finding the right people with the right talent and expertise to staff our wards and departments requires a lot of work behind the scenes, as does looking after them properly when they join us.
“My warmest thanks to everyone involved in recruiting, welcoming and mentoring our new arrivals.”
A spokesman for the trust said that it had 200 nursing vacancies at the start of the year.
After a recruiting drive in England and Ireland it now had 100 vacancies and had plans in place to fill those.
