Lord Balfe
Main Page: Lord Balfe (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Balfe's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I am not sure that retention is necessarily the challenge that the noble Baroness suggests. There has in fact been a 26% increase in acceptances to nursing and midwifery courses when compared to last year, and 1,290 more applications were made in 2020 compared to 2019. The truth is that nursing is a challenging job but one that many people want to take up. There is a long queue of people who want these positions because they are rewarding in many different ways. We appreciate the contribution made by nurses and the whole healthcare sector, but there is no disguising the fact that these are attractive jobs, which many people wish to take up.
Lord Balfe (Con)
Does the Minister accept that it was not a 2.1% increase but a 2.1% addition to the bill, which included a number of emoluments that are added each year? It was not 2.1% for everybody; it was a whole package. The Government need to get their case across a bit better, particularly with what the Minister just said about recruitment. I suggest that the Government pay attention to getting their case across. As the Minister said, nursing, with its lifetime pension, is a very attractive proposition at the moment.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, the percentages are unbelievably complicated. It is difficult to stand by one single number to represent pay that goes to hundreds of thousands of different nurses under different circumstances. However, I agree completely with my noble friend. What is at stake here is not just one pay rise in one year but the entire package of circumstances in which nurses do their job. We are determined to ensure that that workplace package is as good as it can possibly be. We acknowledge that there are cultural challenges of working in the NHS, which we are fighting hard to improve. We recognise that training opportunities for nurses should be better and we are working hard to improve those. We recognise that nurses have little capacity for holidays, which is why we are recruiting a very large number of new nurses. It is the entire package that we are focused on, which is why we have put forward the affordability argument as we have.