NHS: Nurse Recruitment

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

We do not think we should just have a protectionist view on staff. It is important that we recruit British staff from the UK, but we should not have a policy of British jobs for British workers. There are very good staff across the world. Indeed, in some countries they train more staff than they have places for in their health system so that they become a foreign revenue earner. Many people who have looked at the statistics say that remittances quite often are more effective than foreign aid.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Could the Minister say how many agency nurses are being employed by the NHS? Is he not concerned that so many are being employed when they are so much more expensive?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend makes a valuable point about the cost of agency nurses, which is why we have the goal of recruiting 50,000 nurses. We are looking at completely different pathways to ensure that we can encourage people into nursing. I do not have the statistics with me, but I will write to my noble friend.