The British government has launched local and national initiatives to tackle the problems of recruiting and retaining nursing staff. But will these be sufficient to resolve the current crisis?

Difficulties in recruiting and retaining key workers are severely hampering the quality of service the NHS can provide and the progress towards “modernisation.” In our other article published in this same issue, we outline the extent of recruitment and retention problems in the nursing and midwifery workforce. Here, we describe the main initiatives for England introduced by the government to tackle the problems and the new administrative machinery to implement them. We discuss whether these initiatives will be adequate.