Staff numbers at Waitemata DHB continue to grow

13 September 2013

Staff numbers at Waitemata DHB continue to grow

The number of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals at Waitemata DHB continues to grow.

Waitemata DHB director of human resources, Sam Bartrum, says clinical staff numbers at the DHB have increased by 479 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) roles since July 2009, including 133 extra doctors and 346 nursing and allied health professionals.

“We’ve also had 199 new staff members – many of them doctors, nurses and allied health professionals – start at our DHB over the past three months. In addition to this, over the quarter, another 290 current DHB employees have taken on new roles internally.”

Waitemata DHB provides health services to more than 560,000 people in northern and western Auckland, making it the largest DHB by population size.

“As with any large organisation of our size, there will always be vacancies across our organisation. This vacancy rate is not just comprised of people moving on from our DHB – it also includes mums taking maternity leave, and people on other extended leave.

“The vacancy rate also does not take into account the use of fixed term contract staff, as well as locum and bureau staff – these are doctors and nurses who fill in when a role is temporarily vacant, ensuring that we can continue to deliver a high standard of care to our patients.”

The DHB is vigorously recruiting for 331 FTE roles out of a total of nearly 5500 FTE roles across the organisation.

“This is a vacancy rate of just 6% of our total FTE, which is consistent with our rates over past years.”

Mr Bartrum says nursing and doctor vacancy rates are much lower than the overall rate for the organisation, at 5% and 4% respectively.

Some 142 nursing FTE roles are being recruited for currently (out of a total workforce FTE of more than 2300) while just 27 doctor roles are being advertised for at present (out of more than 650 roles across the DHB).

“In fact, the vacancy rates for doctors are at the lowest they’ve ever been for our DHB.”

He says the DHB is always actively recruiting.

“That’s simply the reality for an organisation of our size. Our turnover rate is in line with the national average and below that of many other DHBs. Also, on average, it takes us 66 days to recruit, which is in line with the national average and less than many other DHBs.”

ENDS

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