Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many doctors and nurses, including agency staff and locums, are working in the NHS in England; and what the equivalent figure was in 2009-10.

Between May 2010 and October 2014, the official statistics published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre show that the full-time equivalent (FTE) number of National Health Service directly employed doctors, including locums, increased by 9,300 and the number of NHS directly employed nurses, midwives and health visitors increased by 5,800.

In addition, over the same period, it is estimated that service from agency nurses increased by approximately 6,000 FTE. The use of agency doctors remains unchanged.