NHS: Nurse Retention Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Watts's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberIn the last few years there has been an increase in agency spend. Of course, per nursing hour that tends to be more expensive. We have managed to reduce agency spend by increasing the availability of nursing banks. Those are the people employed on flexible contracts, which is very welcome for many nurses who are looking for—as they say in staff surveys—greater flexible working arrangements.
My Lords, how did the Government get their planning so wrong? The demographics were known, and yet the Government have failed to plan to provide the sorts of numbers of nurses that we need. What went wrong?
We know that we have a growing ageing population—I do not doubt that. We have been increasing real-terms funding for the NHS, which is going on more staff. Nurse numbers have increased and I should point out that there are more doctors and ambulance staff. There have been about 40,000 more clinical staff in general in the NHS over the past few years and more to come in the future.