NURSES are being recruited from India to help fill vacancies at the Department of Psychiatry in Southampton.

The Daily Echo can reveal that eight nurses are currently awaiting security checks before flying to the UK to start new lives in Hampshire.

Bosses at the Hampshire Partnership NHS Trust, which runs mental health services across the county, launched the recruitment drive after struggling to find suitably qualified nursing staff to fill empty posts.

The eight Indian nurses will fill almost half the 17 vacancies currently at the psychiatric unit.

Most of the new recruits come from Delhi and the southern areas of India, and all have been drawn from Nursing and Midwifery Council-approved universities.

Trust recruitment officers came up with the idea after learning of other mental health trusts in the UK which had successfully taken on staff from India.

A Department of Health-approved recruitment agency helped the trust identify and shortlist candidates before two members of senior nursing staff flew out to conduct interviews.

All recruits will undergo an adaptation programme to help them settle in and will be closely supervised on the wards in their early weeks.

The recruitment drive follows long-running difficulties in finding trained psychiatric nurses in the local area.

Martin Barkley, Hampshire Partnership Trust chief executive, told the Daily Echo: "The recruitment situation at the Department of Psychiatry is improving, although there are still a number of vacancies that we are working to fill.

"We have been working closely with staff and trade unions at the Department of Psychiatry to address these staffing issues.

"We are not only working to improve the way we recruit new staff but also to ensure we can retain existing staff."

Mr Barkley said local and national recruitment campaigns were continuing, and a number of candidates had recently been shortlisted to help fill the remaining nine nursing posts.

He said other measures had been put in place to help ease staffing shortages in the meantime, including:

a reduced number of beds on the wards by using increased community support

stopping admissions from out of the area

the introduction of a new bleep system, restricted to senior staff

a review of all incidents over the past 12 months

a continuous programme of staff clinics

The Department of Psychiatry is based on the same site as the Royal South Hants Hospital in central Southampton.

Last October, the Daily Echo lifted the lid on conditions inside the unit after obtaining a leaked document which outlined nurses' concerns about staff shortages.

It claimed nurses were working in a climate of fear, often turning a blind eye when patients took drugs or alcohol on the wards.

However, the trust has spent more than £500,000 in the last four years to improve conditions.