Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many nurses have worked in NHS community health services on average in each of the last 10 years.

NHS England publishes Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics for England. These include staff working for hospital trusts and integrated care boards, but excludes staff working for other providers such as in primary care, general practice or social care. This data is drawn from the Electronic Staff Record, the human resources system for the National Health Service.

The latest statistics on NHS nursing workforce by area of nursing and care setting can be found in the link below within the ‘Nurses by Setting’ worksheet:

https://files.digital.nhs.uk/9A/948DEC/NHS%20Workforce%20Statistics%2C%20January%202024%20England%20Provisional%20statistics.xlsx

Within this data there are nurses working in community settings within several staff groups including community health nurses, community learning disability nurses, community mental health nurses, and as health visitors.