Nursing: Higher Education Investment

Caroline Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Eleanor Smith) on securing a debate on this very important subject and the Minister for Health on his new role.

I do not think there is anybody in Westminster Hall today who would doubt the value of nursing or the importance of good nursing and nurse training. I have worked for my entire career as a paediatrician; I am now a consultant paediatrician. Nurses and midwives have had a significant impact on both my career and my personal experiences. When I worked on a neonatal intensive care unit, many nurses influenced my career. However, there was one in particular—a lady called Mary Palfreman, a nurse in Nottingham—who had a profound effect on me, because she is such a fantastic nurse. On a personal level, I was cared for through several of my pregnancies by a midwife called Marie Robinson, who was able to balance treating me as a medic, who had more knowledge of neonates and babies than the average first-time mum, with treating me as a mum. She recognised that I was a bit of both and perhaps needed a slightly different approach from others—even a unique approach. She treated everybody as she found them, and she is a fabulous woman.

None of us, therefore, would doubt the value of a good nurse and the importance of making sure that there are adequate numbers of nurses. Nursing is a great and varied career, which is something we should be selling more. Nurses have the opportunity to nurse in many different fields. As their career progresses, they can go into administrative roles, managerial roles and specialist technical roles in the community or in a hospital, and develop a good and, at the high level, extremely well paid career.

So what should a good training scheme do? Obviously, it should provide high-quality experience, so that students develop the necessary expertise; it should provide the opportunity for continuing personal development; and it should ensure that there is an adequate supply of nurses. We have a change in demographics: the population is getting older, there are more people with complex health needs, and the population is increasing in size. So we need to ensure that the number of new nurses keeps up with both those developments and the natural attrition of nurses as people retire and so on. We also need to ensure—this is very important to me as a Conservative— that anyone who has the desire and the aptitude to train as a nurse can do so and is not limited by how much money they have or where they are from.

Looking at some of the figures, it is evident there has been a drop in the number of people applying to become nurses, but at this stage there are still many more applications for nursing than there are nursing training places. I was not a parliamentarian when the new policy was introduced, but I understand that the aim behind it was to ensure that more places were available so that more people with the desire and the aptitude could train. The figures I have been given show there are 13,000 more nurses on the wards now than there were in 2010.

In January I was a member of the Select Committee on Health when it produced the nursing workforce report that the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams) mentioned earlier. It showed specific shortages in mental health, learning disability and district nursing. I understand that the previous Minister undertook to give up to £10,000 to people training in that field, to try to address the shortages. Will the Minister tell us how that is working and whether it is increasing applications? Also, the Government had recognised specific challenges for people wishing to go back into nursing or to develop nursing as a career after having children. Is the Minister looking into what support can be offered to those with disabilities and those with children to make sure that they are still able to access nurse training and become the fabulous nurses that they can be?

The issue of part-time jobs has been raised. Most of the nursing students I have worked with in my career have had part-time jobs, usually as a healthcare assistant, often on the same ward that they have worked on as a nurse, so I am not sure the point that was made entirely reflects what I have seen.

Finally, I want to mention alternative routes into nursing. There is more than one route to achieving a goal. There are opportunities for people to work as nursing associates. Some of the healthcare assistants I have worked with have done that, and they really enjoy their training. There is also the opportunity to go into a nurse apprenticeship as an alternative way of training while working. That is not for everybody, because people want different things, but it is another way in which we can increase nurse numbers without having an impact on training. I am aware of the time, but will the Minister update us on—

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady’s time is up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Hammond]

Inspiration has just reached me. As the hon. Gentleman will know, Health Education England recently published a report on attrition rates on nursing courses—I made the point earlier that the rate of attrition among all people applying for university places has gone down. However, I will write to the hon. Gentleman. The report published by Health Education England describes how attrition rates on those courses have fallen considerably over the past few years, but I will write to him to be absolutely clear. He may then choose to make that letter available.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

“The nursing workforce” report, which was published by the Select Committee on Health in January, identified that 30% of students due to complete in 2015-16 or 2016-17 did not complete within that period. Significant variability between different training institutions was also identified. Will the Minister commit to looking at why some institutions have such high attrition rates compared with others?

[Stephen Hammond]

That is an extremely important point. There is not necessarily a universal reason why particular institutions have worse attrition rates than others, and that may well be key to retaining people who wish to stay in the profession.

In my last minute, I will finish on this point: NHS England, NHS Improvement and Health Education England are all working with trusts on a range of recruitment, retention and return-to-practice programmes. Some of those have met with some success: NHS Improvement’s retention programme works directly with trusts to support improvements in retention. However, I want to make clear that, as the newest member of the Government and of the Department, I regard the retention of our NHS professionals as a priority, and I am looking forward to making a contribution not only to things like the “Talk Health and Care” platform, through which there has already been positive engagement, but on this matter more generally. Retention is key, and we want to make sure nurses understand that we recognise how important they are. The long-term plan will set out a strategy to ensure a more sustainable future supply of nurses. They work incredibly hard, and it is absolutely right that this Government will commit to ensure that funding is dedicated to the supply—

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).