A leading Dutch nursing organisation warned on Thursday that there is a growing shortage of highly qualified nursing staff in the Netherlands.

By the end of this year, the home nursing sector alone will face a shortfall of some 1,000 nurses, the V&VN said. The V&VN is the biggest Dutch nursing association.

‘There is a worrying shortage of well-qualified nurses in several sectors, including home nurses, district nurses, nursing homes and in specialist hospital departments such as cancer and dialysis,’ spokesman Francis Bolle told the AD.

Figures from the national statistics office CBS show there were 180,000 registered nurses in the Netherlands at the end of 2014, a drop of around 33% on the previous year.

The decline is due to the introduction of new rules requiring all nurses to re-register in the Dutch health professionals register BIG. Nurses who had not had sufficient patient contact and training in the previous years were automatically scrapped.

Healthcare provider organisation Actiz and the V&VN have launched a joint campaign to encourage more people to take up complex care of the elderly as a career.