Health Professions: Recruitment

(asked on 15th January 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Long Term Plan how many (a) nurses and (b) doctors the NHS in England plan to recruit in each year up to 2022-24.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 22nd January 2019

It is the responsibility of National Health Service trusts to have staffing arrangements in place that deliver safe and effective care. This includes recruiting the staff needed to support these levels and meet local needs.

The NHS Long Term Plan, published 7 January 2019, sets out a vital strategic framework to ensure that over the next 10 years the NHS will have the staff it needs so that nurses and doctors have the time they need to care, working in a supportive culture that allows them to provide the expert compassionate care they are committed providing.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has commissioned Baroness Dido Harding, working closely with Sir David Behan, to lead a number of programmes to engage with key NHS interests to develop a detailed workforce implementation plan. These programmes will consider detailed proposals to grow the workforce, including consideration of additional staff and skills required, build a supportive working culture in the NHS and ensure first rate leadership for NHS staff.

We are already increasing nurse training places by 25% - that is 5,000 additional nurse training places available every year from September 2018. In 2018 up to 5,000 Nursing Associates commenced training through the apprentice route and the Department has a commitment to train up to a further 7,500 in 2019.

We have also made a commitment to have 5,000 additional doctors in general practice and we have started to roll out an extra 1,500 medical school places for domestic students, with the first 630 places taken up in September. By 2020, five new medical schools will have opened to help deliver the expansion.

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