Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answers by Lord Prior of Brampton on 22 November (HL Deb, cols 1831–2), how many of the additional 40,000 nurses will be employed by agencies.

As set out by Health Education England in its Workforce Plan for England: Proposed Education and Training Commissions for 2016/2017, an increase in available supply of between 3,000 and 40,000 nurses (adult, children’s, mental health and learning disability nurses) is forecast by 2020 compared with 2015. A copy of the Plan is attached.

No estimate has been made of how many of these nurses will choose to be employed by agencies. However the Government’s agency controls are already moving staff back to substantive and bank roles.