AN increase in the number and complexity of workplace health and safety laws is creating record demand for occupational nurses in Wales.

As management of health and safety becomes a major issue, many smaller companies who do not want to make full-time first-aid appointments are calling on part-time staff from outside.

One of the major suppliers has turned out to be Newport-based Acorn Recruitment, which says it has the fastest-growing nursing agency in Wales.

Acorn confirms that employers faced with new demands on workplace healthcare are increasingly turning to professional staff for help.

Its occupational nurses are supplied to many large employers in South Wales, which recognise the advantage of having fully-trained healthcare staff on site, said Acorn nursing principal Claire Walkley.

"Now, we are finding that medium and smaller companies are faced with similar health and safety legislation and need specialist support," she said.

"With many employers not large enough to warrant the appointment of a full-time nurse, Acorn is finding that many are opting for a part-time, agency-supplied nurse."

The recruitment and training company, which has offices across Wales and the North West of England, launched a nursing division when it acquired long-established Ashleigh Nursing, of Swansea, three years ago.

"Since then the division has grown substantially and now supplies occupational health nurses, home care and residential homes nurses across a wide area in addition to registered nurses into the region's hospitals," she said.

"Some employers still think they only need a nurse if someone needs to be administered first aid, but that's very much a thing of the past.

"Nurses are now required to undertake blood-testing and cholesterol-testing as well as provide sickness absence management. It's very much a pre-emptive rather than reaction service."

A spokesman for Professional Health and Safety Consultants in London said: "Health and Safety compliance in the workplace has never been more important, and the need for enterprises to comply with the increasing raft of legislation is motivated by the Health and Safety Executive, factory inspectors and the legal profession."

As an example, the HSE has just published guidance on dealing with repetitive strain injury (RSI), which results in an estimated loss of over four million working days in Britain.