HEALTH and Social Services recruited more nurses last year than left, but it said this has no direct correlation with ward closures.

It has said the closures were because it did not have enough staff.

In answers to written questions by Deputy Mike Hadley, the department released figures which show that it recruited 35 more nurses than left last year.

But it added later that it employs more than 1,000 nurses in total in many different areas.

‘There is not therefore a direct relationship between the overall number of starters and leavers in nursing and the specific issue we have in surgery and medicine,’ a department spokesman told the Guernsey Press.