Nursing: Recruitment

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I would hope and trust that such a respected person would see this position as the vocation that it is and the support that they give. We accept that there are some agency workers being used in this space, because obviously, in terms of safety, we need to make sure we cover that number of people. The whole recruitment plan—which, again, we are on target to achieve—is all about making sure we have enough nurses so that we do not have to use agency workers.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, following on from the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, can I ask the Minister if there are plans to increase the number of student nursing places at universities and student apprenticeships over at least the next decade? While there is a short-term crisis, there is also a longer-term sustainability crisis, especially with current demographics.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Baroness is correct that this is a long-term pipeline. We have 72,000 nurses in training at the moment. To be clear, there is no cap at all on student places. We are seeking to increase them as much as possible, and we put a £5,000-a-year grant in so that trainee nurses could enjoy superior levels of financial support than other students. The fact that we have a pipeline of 72,000 shows that this is working, but that pipeline is not capped, so if we can get more people in, we definitely want to do that.