NHS: Nurses
(asked on 5th March 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many nurses left the NHS in each year since 2010.
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups, but not staff working in primary care, local authorities or other providers.
The following table shows the number of nurses and health visitors who have left National Health Service employment as at 30 September for each of the years.
| Nurses and health visitors who left employment in the NHS |
September 2009 to September 2010 | 25,940 |
September 2010 to September 2011 | 27,462 |
September 2011 to September 2012 | 32,816 |
September 2012 to September 2013 | 28,547 |
September 2013 to September 2014 | 30,551 |
September 2014 to September 2015 | 33,800 |
September 2015 to September 2016 | 32,926 |
September 2016 to September 2017 | 33,530 |
September 2017 to September 2018 | 32,155 |
Source: NHS Digital
These figures include nurses moving to roles in primary care and social care.
The Government has put in place a range of measures to increase nursing workforce supply, including a new route in to nursing through 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 one 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.