Nurses: Labour Turnover
(asked on 10th July 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to improve the recruitment and retention of nurses.
The National Health Service is employing more nurses than ever before with 307,491 “full time equivalent” nurses, midwives and health visitors in post (March 2017) and a further 52,000 in training.
Led by the Chief Nursing Officer for England, the Department is working with Health Education England (HEE), NHS England and other partners to improve the recruitment and retention of nurses.
HEE, which is responsible for ensuring there is sufficient future supply of staff to meet the workforce requirements of the NHS inEngland1, forecasts more than 40,000 additional nurses by 2020. There are new opportunities to join the NHS as nursing associates and through the nurse apprentice scheme, announced last year which should see up to 1,000 nurse apprentices join the NHS each year. HEE is also leading a £5 million campaign to get experienced nurses who have left the profession back to work through its Return to Practice Programme. Delivered by 38 universities, since 2014, 3,400 have joined the Programme and over 2,000 nurses have completed it and are ready for employment.
NHS Improvement is working with trusts to support the development of their improvement plans for retaining the nursing workforce through, for example, ensuring trusts’ demonstrate leadership and culture support, and nurture staff in an environment of continuous learning for the benefit of patients. The Department is also leading work with NHS England, HEE and others to do more to retain nurses through, for example, working with the NHS to improve opportunities for flexible working. The Department is also working with the Care Quality Commission to see how staff welfare issues can be included in their hospital inspection regime so progress can be tracked.
Note:
1Information on future supply and specialty fill rates can be found in HEE’s Workforce Plan for England 2016-17.