Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Lee Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I would love to do that. I will raise it with Mike Richards, who is running a review of the future of screening services. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in congratulating my hon. Friend on her forthcoming use of maternity services in the NHS.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the staffing levels of registered nurses in hospitals.

[The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond)]

Our policies have allowed the NHS to recruit over 13,400 more nurses into all wards since 2010. Additionally, we have increased the number of available nurse training places, offering new routes into the profession and encouraging those who have left nursing to return to practice, alongside retaining more of the staff that we have now.

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I was so enthusiastic about the number of extra staff in the national health service, I might have inadvertently misled my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis): it is 500 obs and gynae doctors since 2010.

[Mr Speaker]

In calling the hon. Member for Lincoln, I congratulate her on her birthday.

[Karen Lee]

You are very kind, Mr Speaker. The latest Care Quality Commission report on Lincoln County Hospital found sufficient nursing staff on only four of the 28 days reviewed and a heavy reliance on agency staff. As people know, I was a cardiac nurse for 12 years, and I can tell the House that agency nurses are expensive and create extra work—often they cannot do IVs and they are not familiar with paperwork, so the regular nurses end up doing half their jobs for them. Will the Secretary of State explain to the House why the NHS long-term plan has no policy on effectively tackling understaffing and no mention of reinstating the nursing bursary, which enabled nurses like me to train?

[Stephen Hammond]

The hon. Lady is right: we want to see more nurses in the NHS. That is why we have provided funding to increase nurse training places by 25% and why the long-term plan will have a detailed workforce implementation plan. She talked about the bursary, but since that was replaced nurses on current training schemes are typically 25% better off. Alongside that, additional funds support learning.