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NHS Staffing

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. He is entirely correct; the UK birth rate is increasing appreciably, so not only has there been a shortage of midwives but with the rising pattern of births the situation can only get worse. The statistics I gave are not in dispute, but in various parts of the country accident and emergency attendances put huge pressures on the staffing resources of hospitals. At West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust, A and E attendances have soared by 34 per cent. since 2001-02, at the very time when there have been staffing cuts at the hospitals and a reduction in the number of beds. There has already been an allusion to the recruitment of doctors. It is a growing problem in Suffolk, so I welcome the Government's announcement today that they are attempting to preserve health service jobs for British graduates. However, budgetary constraints are another reason why junior doctors struggle to find employment; GP practices are unable to fund extra posts. I have had many conversations about that point with GPs in my constituency. I am constantly told by constituents and people who work in our hospitals that rather than cuts we desperately need more doctors and nurses in the local NHS, reversing the pattern of the past few years, yet instead the number of NHS managers is increasing three times as fast as the number of nurses. Between 2005 and 2006, twice as many nursing jobs were lost as managerial jobs. In the east of England, there has been a 4.9 per cent. increase since 1997 in the number of manager and senior manager positions—from 2,027 to 3,126—yet there has been only a 2.8 per cent. increase in the number of nurses, from 29,424 to 37,377.