Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to meet the targets for increasing the number of nursing associates included in the 2023 NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.

As of September 2024, there were 6,161 full time equivalent nursing associates employed across National Health Service trusts and integrated care boards in England. This is 424, or 7.4%, more than a year previously.

Training and retaining talented NHS staff is absolutely central to our mission of rebuilding a health service that is fit for the future. Our 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS will establish how to train and provide the staff the NHS needs, including nurses, to care for patients across our communities. The refreshed Long Term Workforce Plan will deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade, and will ensure that the NHS has the right people, including nursing associates, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need when they need it.