Health Workers: Training

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I do not recognise the description of “slagging off”. We know that GPs do a fantastic job and we are recruiting more of them—5,000, as the noble Lord said. More money is going into general practice as part of the five-year forward view. The Prime Minister in her statement paid tribute to the work that GPs do and said that there were obligations around extended hours and the provision of out-of-hours healthcare—and it is quite right, with the pressures we face, that every part of the healthcare system steps up to fulfil its responsibilities just as others are doing, in order to meet the pressure we are under.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)]

My Lords, in the past I have raised the issue of the standard of training for nurses and the fact that they have to have five A-levels to get in. The answer from the Government is that they are about to introduce training that will not require five A-levels and therefore will produce many more nurses. Can the Minister tell us what is happening with that and whether there is any real progress?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

There are two routes into nursing. One is the university route, and because of the changes we are making, there will be the possibility for universities to recruit up to 10,000 more nurses. That is why we are removing the cap. We have also introduced an apprenticeship route, which does not involve going to university but follows the apprenticeship route practised in other fields. That will have 1,000 places in its first instance.