HEALTH bosses are putting the nursing crisis at York District Hospital at the top of their list of priorities after the shortages were classed as one of the worst in the country this week.

Simon Pleydell, chief executive of York Health Services NHS Trust, said the shortfall was being addressed as "top priority" after the Commission for Health Improvement, the Government's heath watchdog, report highlighted the shortfall in staff in the health trust after an inspection last year.

£2 million is being pumped into the system over the next four years to try and redress the problem and this year £440,000 has been made available to recruit about 35 extra staff, nurses and midwives.

Mike Proctor, head of nursing services for the trust, said: "We need to bring our nursing levels back up to what is normal. If you go onto the wards it does feel a bit thin on the ground with staff and the report findings has confirmed this."

He said the hospital was running on about 95 nurses per 100 beds, one of the lowest rates in the country, and that the shortfall had happened slowly over the years.

"This is a national problem and York's share of it is now beginning to bite. We desperately need more staff.

"Patient treatment is not suffering but we are not able to go the extra mile because staff are stretched.

"We want to offer staff a flexible option and we need to retain staff."

He said two nurses were now dedicated to working with existing and new nurses to find flexible packages to attract them back to the hospital. Anthea Gledhill and Christina Shanks work as careers advisors and act as a centralised recruitment point for the trust.

But Edna Mulhearn, UNISON representative at the hospital, said the shortage of nurses would not improve until there was a proper national pay rise to bring them into line with teachers and police officers.

"Nurses have been exploited for years and the Government knows they won't go on strike.

"The issue needs to be dealt with nationally. But as things stand at the moment how can our hospital expect to entice nurses when pay is so bad.

"York is not so attractive anymore as nurses can't afford to live in the city with the high house prices.

"Anything the management can do to try and alleviate the problem is good but I can only say that the situation could very well get even worse as we have a large number of nurses coming up to retirement age in the next five years."

Updated: 08:49 Monday, February 25, 2002