Nurses: Training
(asked on 26th November 2015) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many nurses' training places were available in each region in each year since 2009; how many (a) agency nurses and (b) nurses from outside the UK were used by the NHS in each year since 2009; and what the cost to the NHS was of both such categories of nurses in each of those years.
Non-medical training numbers are collected as part of the quarterly multi professional education and training budget monitoring returns that are submitted to the Department by Health Education England (HEE). Prior to the establishment of HEE in 2013/14 these were submitted to the Department by the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) as part of their quarterly Financial Information Management Systems (FIMS) monitoring returns. The table below shows the number of nurse training places available in each SHA from 2009/10 to 2012/13.
2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | |
NHS North East | 1,095 | 1,045 | 1,000 | 992 |
NHS North West | 3,630 | 3,358 | 3,082 | 3,066 |
NHS Yorkshire and Humber | 2,299 | 2,278 | 1,848 | 1,805 |
NHS East Midlands | 1,735 | 1,660 | 1,462 | 1,430 |
NHS West Midlands | 2,597 | 2,557 | 2,102 | 2,102 |
NHS East of England | 1,889 | 1,717 | 1,536 | 1,494 |
NHS London | 3,992 | 3,695 | 3,401 | 3,088 |
NHS South East Coast | 1,335 | 1,281 | 1,169 | 1,123 |
NHS South Central | 1,175 | 1,237 | 1,108 | 1,153 |
NHS South West | 1,590 | 1499 | 1,361 | 1,293 |
Total planned | 21,337 | 20,327 | 18,069 | 17,546 |
Source: SHA quarterly FIMS monitoring returns
The following table details the information collected by HEE in relation to available nurse training places from 2013/14 to 2015/16, broken down by Local Education and Training Boards (LETB).
The disaggregated data for 2013/14 is not held within the format requested. The published national workforce plan for 2013/14 stated that there would be 18,009 training commissions available for nursing.
LETB Region | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 |
North East | 1,105 | 1,089 | |
North West | 3,415 | 3,322 | |
Yorkshire and Humber | 2,010 | 2,059 | |
West Midlands | 2,157 | 2,192 | |
East Midlands | 1,613 | 1,661 | |
East of England | 1,783 | 2,015 | |
North West London | 820 | 917 | |
North, Central and East London | 1,201 | 1,280 | |
South London | 1,138 | 1,171 | |
Kent, Surrey and Sussex | 1,126 | 1,209 | |
Thames Valley | 768 | 795 | |
Wessex | 941 | 1,011 | |
South West | 1,368 | 1,432 | |
Total | 18,009 | 19,445 | 20,153 |
Source: Multi-professional education and training budget monitoring returns
The Department does not collect data centrally on the number of agency nurses working in the NHS. This information may be held locally at Trust level.
The Department started to collect financial data from NHS trusts and foundation trusts in respect of net temporary and agency staffing costs specifically from 2013/14. Available data on spending nationally on all agency staff in England is set out in the table below. We are not able to separately identify total spending with agencies on nurses from centrally held data.
Total cost to the NHS of temporary staff in 2013/14 and 2014/15
2013/14 £000s | 2014/15 £000s | |
Total NHS Providers | 2,605,378 | 3,355,723 |
Source: Department of Health Annual Report and Accounts 2014/15
The Department does not hold information on the total cost to the NHS of nurses from outside of the United Kingdom working in the service. The information provided in the table below shows the number of declared non-British nurses working in the NHS in England dating back to 2009. Non-British nursing numbers working in the NHS in England covers hospital and community health services in the NHS but not primary care.
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |
Non-British | 40,034 | 41,642 | 40,911 | 40,030 | 40,330 | 43,258 |
Proportion of non-British nurses as % of the nursing workforce | 14.4% | 14.3% | 13.8% | 13.3% | 13.0% | 13.5% |
Source: Health and Social Care Information Centre.