Nurses: Training

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts
Tuesday 22nd November 2016

(7 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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None Portrait Noble Lords
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Cross Bench!

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Portrait Baroness Watkins of Tavistock
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My Lords, can the Minister comment on the ratio between nurses retiring from the service and those coming in? I too welcome the potential development of the nursing associate—although we need to get it right—and graduate-entry nursing, but we still need a system to rapidly increase the number of registered nurses over the next five years. I do not believe that the figures illustrate that we will be replacing like with like in terms of numbers.

Lord Prior of Brampton Portrait Lord Prior of Brampton
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My Lords, the best estimate of Health Education England is that, making reasonable assumptions about the attrition rate of students and the retention of existing nurses, by 2020 we will have 40,000 more registered nurses working in the NHS than we do today.