Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full-time equivalent school nurses there were in each January since January 2010.
School nurses are commissioned by local authorities and can be employed by a range of provider organisations including health trusts and local authorities themselves. Our best data comes from the National Health Service electronic staff record (ESR) which does not cover the complete range of these organisations. As a result, it is not possible to provide accurate data on the total size of the school nurse workforce. The ESR data in the table below presents statistics on school nurses employed by NHS trusts in England only:
NHS Hospital and Community Health Services: Qualified nurses working in the area of school nursing in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups in England as at 30 January each specified year full- time equivalent (fte).
| All registered (qualified) nurses working in the care setting of school nursing (fte) | of which qualified school nurses (fte) |
January 2010 | 3,026 | 1,121 |
January 2011 | 2,965 | 1,057 |
January 2012 | 2,849 | 1,110 |
January 2013 | 2,721 | 1,113 |
January 2014 | 2,775 | 1,104 |
January 2015 | 2,775 | 1,098 |
January 2016 | 2,693 | 1,069 |
January 2017 | 2,553 | 1,092 |
January 2018 | 2,332 | 1,058 |