National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Roberts of Llandudno
Main Page: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Roberts of Llandudno's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberI do not think that is a problem. In many ways, in acute hospitals we lack generalists. That is true of consultants as well of nurses. That is actually my noble friend’s point. Possibly there are too many specialists, but on a cardiac ward or a specialist acute ward you need specialist nurses who know how to operate the equipment as well as how to look after the patient. You need a good balance between the two but, if anything, I fear we have, as my noble friend said, become too specialist and insufficiently generalist.
My Lords, what is the Minister’s opinion of the Government’s decision to deport nurses from overseas who do not reach the £35,000 a year income level within five years?
The noble Lord raises a good point. We need to train as many of our own nurses as possible. There will be times when we get those calculations wrong and it will be necessary to bring in nurses from overseas. That is not a desirable outcome for many reasons, which there is not time to go into today. We need to train more ourselves.