Health: Patient Safety

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

It was only recently that the Nursing and Midwifery Council revised the curriculum for the training of nurses. I am sure that the noble Lord will be pleased to know that that curriculum is broadly divided 50:50 into practical training and training in the classroom, which was the balance historically. I believe that nurse training is now set fair for the future. The noble Lord is right to raise concerns about Project 2000, which many people felt did not quite address the needs of nurse training. However, that programme is substantially different now from what it was in 2000.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the arch-moderniser, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. In the whole of my noble friend’s Statement, and indeed until the noble Lord raised his question, not a word was mentioned about the training of the staff who actually care for our patients. We have a situation in which, unless you are a medic, you are not entitled, even if you are a qualified nurse, to have resources spent on you in order to continually update your professional development. In terms of preceptorship, there are no resources; in terms of mentorship, there are little additional resources; and there is virtually no resource to train healthcare assistants. Will my noble friend agree that although the move to have 9,000 more nurses is incredibly welcome, we need to put training at the very heart of the safety agenda, because unless we train we will not get high-quality staff?

[Earl Howe]

I agree with my noble friend; it would be difficult to disagree with him. Training is essential if we are to have high-quality staff. That is why we have protected the training budget, which is now hosted by Health Education England, whose job it is to ensure not just that there are adequate numbers of each type of professional in the health service but that the quality of the training is as we would all wish. It is the task of the local education and training boards to assess the position at a local level and, informed by the NHS providers that are under their wing, to respond to the needs of those providers.