A crèche could help Royal Stoke University Hospital close its staffing gaps, a health campaigner has suggested.

Ian Syme asked bosses at Royal Stoke if they would consider re-opening a childcare facility for parents working at the site.

University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM) Trust, which runs Royal Stoke and Stafford's County Hospital, is facing a 14% vacancy rate for nurses and midwives, a report to a trust board meeting said, while the overall trust vacancy rate was just over 12.5%. And £6.1m was spent on agency nursing during 2022/23.

Board members heard that the NHS workforce gap was an issue across the country,with around 132,000 vacancies nationally. These include 70,000 nursing vacancies.

Chief nurse, Ann-Marie Riley said a crèche at Royal Stoke has already been ruled out as a viable option (SWNS).

Mr Syme said: " The NHS workforce demographic is majority female and an ageing workforce. UHNM, like other trusts, will obviously need to recruit increasing numbers of young individuals to the organisation.

"A dearth of child care is known to inhibit recruitment throughout the national economy. In the first decade of this century this hospital closed its crèche, much to the consternation of many staff.

"I've checked and know there are many hospital trusts nationally that provide crèche facilities for their staff. Has UHNM considered reopening a crèche run by trust employees for trust employees – if not why not?"

The trust's chief nurse Ann-Marie Riley responded: "Providing a crèche has been considered and ruled out as a viable option; it's space and ensuring we have staff trained to run a crèche. There are a number of reasons why it's been deemed non-viable.

"We do have 42 Ofsted-registered crèches in our area and one at County Hospital. There are 45 open from 7am to 7.15pm.

"The other element is around what we can do for our staff to make their childcare requirements easy. Some is around flexible working, such as can we offer a different start or finish time, and we're just about to put a survey out in terms of what does a good workforce offer look like."

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