Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many registered nurses were employed by the NHS in each year from 2013 to 2023.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the number of full time equivalent (FTE) registered nurses, including health visitors, employed across National Health Service trusts and other core organisations in England, each year from September 2013 to September 2023:
Date | FTE nurses and health visitors |
September 2013 | 274,627 |
September 2014 | 278,981 |
September 2015 | 281,474 |
September 2016 | 284,288 |
September 2017 | 283,853 |
September 2018 | 285,674 |
September 2019 | 291,533 |
September 2020 | 304,490 |
September 2021 | 313,836 |
September 2022 | 322,701 |
September 2023 | 341,015 |
Source: Hospital and Community Health Service Workforce Statistics, NHS England.
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many registered nurses and registered nursing associates left the Nursing and Midwifery Council resister in each of the years from 2018 to 2023.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold this information centrally. As the independent regulator of nurses and midwives in the United Kingdom, and nursing associates in England, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is responsible for nurse registration. The NMC publishes annual reports on its website detailing registration data, including the number of leavers, covering the period 2018 to 2023.
The following table shows the number people leaving the NMC register by registration type and financial year:
Year | Midwife | Nurse | Nurse and midwife | Nursing associate | Total |
2018/19 | 1,587 | 27,202 | 351 |
| 29,140 |
2019/20 | 1,439 | 23,757 | 286 | 8 | 25,490 |
2020/21 | 1,333 | 22,344 | 215 | 43 | 23,935 |
2021/22 | 1,474 | 25,222 | 305 | 134 | 27,135 |
2022/23 | 1,490 | 24,774 | 245 | 250 | 26,759 |
2023/24 | 1,432 | 25,203 | 251 | 282 | 27,168 |
Source: Nursing and Midwifery Council Annual Data Report.
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many student nurses completed their training as a registered nurse in each year from 2018 to 2023.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency publishes data on the number of students qualifying from higher education courses in the United Kingdom, and this includes information on a broad ranges of undergraduate nursing courses. The published data is not detailed enough to allow for the reliable identification of all students completing courses which specifically lead to registered nursing status.
As a proxy for the number of students completing nursing courses each year, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) publishes information on the number of UK trained nurses joining their register for the first time, who are resident in England. The following table shows the number of UK trained nurses joining the NMC register in England for the first time, each financial year from 2018/19 to 2023/24:
Year | Number of UK qualified registered nurses joining the NMC register for the first time |
2018/19 | 16,726 |
2019/20 | 17,503 |
2020/21 | 15,083 |
2021/22 | 15,132 |
2022/23 | 16,420 |
2023/24 | 18,478 |
Source: Nursing and Midwifery Council, March 2024 Annual Data Report
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many nursing associates completed their training to become registered nurses in each year from 2018 to 2023.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the information requested. Whilst the Higher Education Statistics Agency publishes data on the number of students completing higher education courses in the United Kingdom, it does not publish data in a detailed enough way to allow for the identification of nursing associates completing subsequent registered nursing training.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council publishes information on their register, including the number of nursing associates across the UK who have added nursing or midwifery registration status. The following table shows the number of nursing associates adding nursing or midwifery register status, in each of the last five financial years:
Year | Nursing associates adding nursing or midwifery registration |
2019/20 | 0 |
2020/21 | 52 |
2021/22 | 120 |
2022/23 | 585 |
2023/24 | 1,571 |
Source: Nursing and Midwifery Council, March 2024 Annual Data Report.
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many student nursing associates completed their training in each year from 2018 to 2023.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the information requested. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) publishes the number of United Kingdom trained nursing associates joining their register for the first time in England, which will be a close proxy for the number completing training. The following table shows the number of UK trained nursing associates joining the NMC register in England for the first time, in each if the last six financial years:
Year | Number of UK trained nursing associates joining the NMC register for the first time |
2018/19 | 485 |
2019/20 | 1,182 |
2020/21 | 2,708 |
2021/22 | 2,743 |
2022/23 | 3,166 |
2023/24 | 3,343 |
Source: Nursing and Midwifery Council, March 2024 Annual Data Report.
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of using paper-based systems for prescribing medicines on the efficacy of homecare medicines services.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
An assessment, through a commissioned piece of user-research of homecare paper-based prescribing, was done during the COVID-19 pandemic. NHS England will use the information in this assessment to understand the issues in homecare, as well as to inform future improvement actions, particularly developing and adoption of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).
No assessment has been made of the impact of requirements under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. The only advanced electronic signature (AES) is through EPS. Not many e-prescribing systems used in secondary care have the capability to meet this AES requirement.
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of requirements under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/1916) for prescriptions to have either a wet signature or an advanced electronic signature on the efficiency of homecare medicines services.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
An assessment, through a commissioned piece of user-research of homecare paper-based prescribing, was done during the COVID-19 pandemic. NHS England will use the information in this assessment to understand the issues in homecare, as well as to inform future improvement actions, particularly developing and adoption of the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS).
No assessment has been made of the impact of requirements under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. The only advanced electronic signature (AES) is through EPS. Not many e-prescribing systems used in secondary care have the capability to meet this AES requirement.
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve interoperability of (1) NHS information management systems, and (2) homecare medicines services information management systems.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
An Information Standard Notice (ISN) which puts in place definitions that are to be used when a health professional sends or receives patient medication and allergy/intolerance information, by computer system, between care locations, has been published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
The purpose is to ensure that medication and allergy information is transferred between systems and locations in a machine-readable format. This will be achieved by: transferring medication information using the newest version for the United Kingdom of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource, by use of either ‘Medication Codable Concept’ or ‘Medication Resource’ as is most appropriate to the use case; usage of dose syntax to transfer the amount of medication per dose as a simple coded quantity; and transferring allergy/intolerance information using Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms and dictionary of medicines and devices codes.
All clinical IT systems that will be used for prescribing homecare medicines will be required to be compliant with this ISN.
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to enable prescriptions to be shared electronically between (1) NHS services, and (2) homecare medicines service providers.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The National Homecare Medicines Committee’s (NHMC) vision for digital transformation, including e-prescribing in homecare, is available in a short video in an online-only format on the YouTube website. The digital subgroup of the NHMC is working with the National Health Service, Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (ePMA) systems vendors and homecare providers to produce an output-based specification for an Electronic Prescribing System (EPS), particularly focusing on the technical aspects of homecare requirements for EPS. This will include interoperable prescribing systems. Any ePMA systems used in secondary care need to be Dictionary of medicines and devices compliant and this applies for homecare medicines too; this is needed to support interoperability.
The output-based specification aims to standardise requirements in homecare medicines e-prescribing, accelerating adoption of e-prescribing system development in homecare. This specification is undergoing final review by NHS England before publication by the NHMC.
Asked by: Lord Willis of Knaresborough (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they anticipate all NHS Trusts to have implemented Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration systems.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent focus on recovery has seen some National Health Service trusts delay implementing Electronic Prescribing and Medication Administration, meaning the timeline for implementation has been pushed to 2025. However, the implementation of e-prescribing in NHS trusts remains a key and appropriate deliverable as part of the vision to digitally transform the NHS. Additionally, the Electronic Prescription Service, which has been widely used in primary care over the past 18 years, is being made available to all NHS trusts by March 2025, should they want to utilise it.