Supply and Demand of Nursing Manpower in Kerala up to 2030

Manpower planning is the approach to the management of human resources based on an anticipation of the future needs of an organisation and the behavioural patterns of individuals within it. The present study was intended to assess the supply and demand of nursing manpower in Kerala up to 2030. An evaluative survey design was used for the study. For the estimation of supply and demand of nursing manpower, the population consisted of all the government and private hospitals in Kerala. An interview schedule was used for collecting the data on the supply of nursing manpower from the hospital administrators. INC norms for the nursing service were used to estimate the cadre wise demand of nursing manpower for each hospital.

The findings of the study revealed that the total nursing manpower available (supply) in the nursing service department in Kerala state during the year 2012 was 54,829 where as the requirement (demand) as per the INC norms was 1,09,707 with a short fall of 54,878 (50%). In future projections it was seen that there is a gap between the supply and demand of total nursing manpower which is increasing as the years pass with a demand short fall of 71,991 (51.24%) in the year 2030.