Why does A&E attract newly qualified registered nurses?

Workforce planning is a particular buzzword that nurse managers must grapple with and now must understand. They must develop strategies to ensure the life and growth of a department while incorporating numerous government targets to ensure the service reaches quality, achieves and meets predetermined goals. To do all this that manager needs a workforce. The recruitment of nursing staff to a specialist area such as Accident & Emergency (A&E) requires a level of creativity and sustained effort. Newly qualified registered nurse working in A&E have, in the past, been considered to be an unusual group of staff to apply to work in A&E. However, many health service managers receive applications from staff in this category and are often encouraged to recruit newly qualified registered nurse's rather than pay for agency workers. Using a qualitative approach this paper explores the key reasons why newly qualified registered nurses choose to work in an Accident & Emergency environment. Data was collected from a sample of 25 newly qualified registered nurses and analysed thematically. Five themes are presented: challenge, teamwork, diversity, support, and learning. These themes have implications for Accident and Emergency units and human resource and workforce planning departments.