Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the ratio of (a) acute, elderly and general nurses to acute, elderly and general nurses health care assistants and (b) all qualified nurses to health care assistants was in each year since 2009-10.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre publish monthly workforce statistics and the latest available data for September 2014 shows that compared to May 2010, there are now 3,355 more nurses, midwives and health visiting staff, and 7,749 more staff providing support to doctors and nurses, working in the National Health Service in England.

Support to clinical staff is not undertaken solely by healthcare assistants. There are other staff that provide similar support, such as nursing auxiliaries and support workers. These staff support both doctors and nurses; it is not possible to separately identify those that provide support only to nurses.

The ratio of nurses working in the acute, elderly and general (A,E and G) area of work to the numbers of the support to doctors and nurses staff group that work in the A,E and G area of work is included in the attached table.

Similarly, the ratio of the total numbers of the nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff group to the numbers of the support to doctors and nurses staff group is included in the attached table.