Nurses: Recruitment

(asked on 6th February 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 4 February 2019 to Question 214460 on Nurses: training and with reference to NHS Digital data showing 33,500 nurses left the NHS in 2016-17, what steps his Department is taking to increase the recruitment and retention of nurses.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 14th February 2019

The National Health Service employs more staff now than at any other time in its 70 year history. There are currently 16,100 more nurses on wards in England than in 2010, with a further 52,000 undergraduates in training.

The latest University and College Admissions Service data shows that applications for full-time undergraduate nursing and midwifery courses has increased by 4.5% on last year. We also announced additional clinical placement funding to support 5,000 more training places each year from September 2018.

The Government has put in place a range of measures to increase nursing workforce supply, including a new route in to nursing through a Nurse Degree and Nursing Associate apprenticeships.

National programmes led by NHS Improvement, NHS Employers and Health Education England are focused on improving staff retention, increasing the number of nurses returning to practice, increasing overseas recruitment and improving sickness absence.

Around 1 million NHS workers will benefit from the new Agenda for Change pay and contract reform deal. The deal includes important changes to pay and non-pay benefits to help support recruitment and retention and boost productivity in return for additional pay investment.

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