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NHS Staffing

The hon. Gentleman should check the facts. The Bill that set up the NHS was voted against on Second and Third Reading. That was very sad. Babies born into the NHS in 1948 have had the opportunity of 60 years of the NHS. The NHS is one of the biggest employers in Europe and now employs more than 1.3 million staff. That level of staffing is required to provide the standard of health care that people demand and the significant improvement in health care provision that we have seen over the past 10 years. When we launched the NHS plan in 2000, the public made it clear that their top priority was to have more staff working in the NHS. More staff are working in the NHS in England now than in 1997. There are almost 11,500 more consultants, more than 35,000 more doctors and nearly 80,000 more nurses in the NHS than there were in 1997.