Baroness Jolly
Main Page: Baroness Jolly (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Jolly's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord O'Shaughnessy
I hope the noble Lord will forgive me: I do not know the specific details about psychiatrists. I know that we need to recruit more doctors, which is why there has been an increase in the number of medical training places. There are in fact around 12,000 more doctors in the NHS today than in 2010. We do have a challenge in mental health, which is to recruit not just doctors but nurses and other assistants to make sure that we can deal with the mental health cases that are sadly not being dealt with in a timely manner at the moment.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, staffing shortages predate Brexit and are across all disciplines and professions. Will the Government consider looking north of the border for a solution to nursing shortages? Scotland has decided to increase the student bursary for nurses, whereas English nurses in training now get no bursary at all. Might an investment in England help attract people to the career of nursing, rather than sending the message to student nurses that they are not valued as much as those in Scotland?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
It is absolutely not the case that they are not valued as much as in Scotland. This country has completely different higher education funding arrangements from those in Scotland. We are taking multiple routes to increase the number of nursing staff in the NHS, including increased funding for clinical places, the nursing apprenticeship route, more retention and bringing nurses back into the profession. We are determined to increase nursing numbers.