NHS: Staff Numbers after Covid-19

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I am indeed here. I have one minute and two points. First, on recruitment and training, the World Health Organization reports that there are 28 million nurses worldwide but a 5.9 million global shortfall in the number of nurses needed. One in every eight nurses practises in a country other than the one where they were born or trained. The UK is a wealthy country and is traditionally a large importer of this scarce and valuable human resource, which other speakers have referred to. Surely we should be training sufficient numbers of nurses for our own needs and more. I note recent figures that UCAS has received 48,830 applications for nursing courses in England, up from 35,960 at the same point last year. In the continuing emergency situation, will the Government ensure that everyone who wants to study nursing gets a place, and will they agree to the Royal College of Physicians’ request to double the number of medical school places?

Secondly, on retention, for which one requirement is surely decent pay, there are many reasons to give the NHS a pay rise that I hardly need to list. However, I note that research by independent analysts London Economics found that 81% of the cost of an NHS pay rise would be recouped by the Government through additional taxes paid by the employee and employer, taxes earned through the greater economic activity that the pay rise would generate, and higher loan repayments by recent graduates. So why not a pay rise?