National Health Service: Nursing Staff

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord is right. The Government recognise the very important contribution that community nurses make in providing high-quality care to people within community settings. I think we have seen a reaction, as I have said, to the Francis report. Lots of hospitals say that they are going to employ more nurses on the wards. We now need to ensure that staffing levels are safe across the NHS and the community, and the Chief Nursing Officer has set up a working group which is looking specifically at what we can do to increase the number of community nurses, which we certainly need to do.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that specialist nurses are not being replaced when they retire and that there is great concern about this as they do such valuable work for many specialties?

[Earl Howe]

I acknowledge the valuable role played by specialist nurses in a number of disciplines but, once again, it is up to employers to exercise their responsibility to manage turnover, retention, recruitment and skill mix to ensure that they have sufficient workforce supply to meet the levels of staffing that the hospital or organisation needs. Here again, patient safety is paramount.