Country comparison: Nurses per 1,000 population
A lack of nursing staff is often the key complaint HBI hears across multiple sectors, with staffing one of the issues keeping our operator readership awake at night.
As HBI Deals + Insights members can read elsewhere this week, the UK government is taking steps to make the appointment – and entry into the country of – overseas nurses and care workers easier. But just how many nurses per, say, head of population is really needed for a healthy healthcare sector?
The figures below are taken from OECD statistics and show there is a surprisingly wide disparity between countries. We have plotted the number of qualified nurses who were professionally active in 2009 and 2019 to show changes
Click the three dots top right then the ‘screen’ button to expand this image to view full screen
Norway is by far the country with the most qualified and active nurses and the only one with a double figure cohort per 1,000 population. Generally, the number of such nurses has increased across the board, though there has been a slight dip in Canada and Slovakia. The largest increase, albeit from a low base, can be seen in Slovenia, though Norway has comfortably more than five times the amount per 1,000 population.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to David Farbrother or call 0207 183 3779.
