This week the BBC led on its ‘scoop’ – obtained through Freedom Of Information requests - that two thirds of trusts and health boards across the UK have large numbers of vacancies, and are trying to fill them by recruiting abroad or facing inflated bills for temporary and agency staff.
23,000 – almost one in ten – NHS nursing posts are vacant overall, while trust board papers show that some face even more disastrous shortages.
In response to the findings, a grumpy John Humphrys asked a series of not terribly well informed questions of the head of Health Education England who was trying to make the best of things, and claiming everything would be okay by 2019.
