BOSSES at the Royal Bolton Hospital are holding a special open day — to employ more nurses from the UK.

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust has at least 40 nursing positions available and is hoping to take on new staff from the region before it considers recruiting overseas.

Trusts nationally have been having difficulties recruiting UK nurses and in the past the Royal Bolton has hired nurses from Spain, Portugal and the Philippines.

Trish Armstrong-Child, the Royal Bolton’s director of nursing, said: “What we are trying to create is the next generation of nurses, both at the hospital and in the community. Our first priority is always to offer positions to local nurses — particularly the nurses who go to our local universities; home-grown nurses who do their placements here.

“International recruitment has been fantastic and those nurses have made a valuable contribution, but it should not be the only solution and we felt this time we should turn to local recruitment first.”

Dr Keith McNeil, chief executive of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, said hiring large numbers of overseas nurses “distracting, frustrating and expensive” and urged officials to improve UK recruitment.

In December, 2013, The Bolton News revealed that the Royal Bolton Hospital was looking abroad to find new recruits after struggling to fill vacancies for 50 nursing roles. The trust undertook an international nurse recruitment programme the following year and hired 30 nurses from Spain and Portugal.

In 2002, hospital chiefs turned to Filipino nurses to fill staffing shortfalls, and 24 arrived in Bolton in 2002.

The open day will take place on August 22 from 10am to 3pm. There will be opportunities to talk to a range of nursing teams from across trust services, take tours of the Royal Bolton’s clinical areas and be interviewed on the day without an appointment.

Ms Armstrong-Child said the trust usually tried to hire more nurses than the minimum needed, and said good nurse recruitment would cut the cost of hiring bank and agency staff.

She added: “With this open day, we wanted to try something different. Potential nurses can talk to our teams about specialist services and how staff are developed and supported.

“It is not just about recruiting, it is also about retaining staff and about showing what we have to offer. There are big opportunities in Bolton, and it is such a friendly place to come to work.”

Hospital bosses say one of the reasons it is difficult to recruit more locally is due to the actions recommended following the Mid Staffs Inquiry, which said there should be more nurses on wards.

Nationally, about 7,500 nurses from countries including Spain, Romania and Italy registered to work in the UK last year.

Figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) show the recruitment of staff from the EU has risen steadily over the past six years – now making up the majority of new overseas recruits – while the number of foreign nurses hired from beyond Europe has dropped.

The number of training places for nurses in England fell in 2011 and 2012.