Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of NHS staff are (a) qualified healthcare professionals and (b) administrative staff.

The following table shows the number and proportion of full time equivalent (FTE) staff employed by National Health Service trusts and integrated care boards in England, by broad staff groups, as of July 2024:

Source: NHS England, NHS Hospital and Community Health Service Workforce Statistics

Notes:

1. Professionally qualified staff will mostly be degree level professionally qualified staff such as doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, allied health professionals and professionally qualified scientific staff.
2. The support to clinical support group will be staff such as healthcare assistants, nursing associate, nursing assistant practitioners, maternity support workers, ambulance technicians, assistant/assistant practitioner AHPs, healthcare science assistants. They will likely hold a range of qualifications relevant to their role.
3. Administrative and clerical staff will include both those with regular interaction with patients such as ward receptionists or clerks (included in published statistics as clerical and administrative support to clinical staff) and also those staff working in ‘back office’ central functions such as finance or human resources roles.
4. Managers or senior managers who are not required to be a specific professionally qualified staff member to undertake their roles.
5. Other NHS infrastructure roles will include NHS property, estates and hotel staff.

Further data is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics