Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent steps his Department has taken to improve recruitment of nurses to the NHS.

Health Education England (HEE) is responsible for the forecasting and planning of the future nursing workforce supply needs for the National Health Service.

HEE has increased nurse training commissions by nearly 15% over the last three years and is forecasting that up to 40,000 additional nurses could be available to the NHS by 2020.

In addition to the increase in training commissions HEE has also implemented a number of steps to increase nurse numbers within the NHS these include:

- proactively promoting the Return to Practice programme, aimed at encouraging previously qualified nurses that have left the NHS, to update their skills and qualifications and return to practice within the NHS;

- the provision of flexible routes into nursing for pre-existing support staff; and

- working closely with universities to improve attrition rates from courses which will further increase the number of nursing students who graduate.