UNION bosses have called for a big increase in nurse training after a major North-East hospital admitted its paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) had fallen below minimum staffing levels for a whole month.

According to figures provided by the South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the average number of nurses and health care assistants on duty at the James Cook University Hospital’s PICU during July this year fell below minimum recommended staffing standards.

NHS hospital trusts have to submit regular staffing figures to the foundation trust watchdog Monitor to ensure that minimum standards are maintained.

Expressed as a traffic light system, the figures for July 2014 at the Middlesbrough hospital’s PICU showed up red in all three categories: the average staffing rate for registered nurses during the day (76.7 per cent); for health care assistants during the day (64.3 per cent); and for registered nurses during the night (77.2 per cent).

By comparison the hospital’s neonatal unit, which provides specialist care for babies, was rated as amber (91 per cent) for daytime nursing cover, green (100 per cent) for daytime nursing assistants and green (98.6 per cent) for night nursing cover during the same month.

A Royal College of Nursing northern region spokesman said: “Trusts across the region, and indeed across the country are experiencing very challenging recruitment and retention issues in nursing currently, and the RCN estimates that there are currently around 20,000 nursing positions vacant across the country.

“Trusts are struggling to recruit and some are having to recruit from abroad and fill vacancies with agency staff. This is part of a bigger problem that central Government must address as a matter of urgency. We need to start training more nurses and provide both universities and NHS trusts with sufficient resources to fill the gaps.”

Ruth Holt, director of nursing and quality assurance at the South Tees Hospitals Trust, said: “Our PICU was very quiet over July and it wasn’t necessary to utilise all our beds. As a result more staff than normal were able to take holidays.

“There were no concerns about the level of staffing on the unit over this time period and this is reflected in our monthly report to the trust board.”