NHS: Nurses

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I always take very careful note of proposals from my noble friend. At the moment, that is not under consideration, but it will certainly be looked into. As the entry salaries rise, it is more likely that student loans will be repaid, but what is important at this stage is that we attract the most nurses into the profession. At the moment students are able to access student loan funding for maintenance as well as the non-repayable funding from the DHSC, which means that we will meet our target of 50,000 more nurses by 2025, which is what we need to be able to deliver a sustainable NHS.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, could the Minister provide an estimate of the number of people the Government expect to recruit from countries where the nurse-to-population ratio is already inadequate? If this is morally right and what we need to do, how can we ensure that some of our overseas aid budgets through DfID are used to increase nurse training in countries that we will recruit nurses from?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Baroness is very expert in this area. I cannot give her specific numbers on specific recruitment from individual countries; I do not know which specific countries she is asking about. I can tell her that the recruitment of nurses from overseas non-EU territories has increased by 156% in recent years; as the daughter of a South African nurse, I can also tell her that this is a long-term pattern and has been good for the NHS. However, we must also make sure that we invest in many of those nations as we do through the overseas budget, which is part of the department’s healthcare priority. I would be happy to write to her with details.