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Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat). It was answered on Tuesday, 27 June 2017.

Brexit: Nursing Staff

Question

My Lords, the Department of Health’s own modelling predicts that there will be a shortage of 40,000 nurses by 2026. My own local hospital has 60 nurse vacancies, and I am sure other noble Lords have similar examples. What do the Government propose to do to avoid the NHS becoming unsafe because of these nursing shortages, given that some nurses are already being asked to stay on at the end of 12-hour shifts in order to fill gaps in the roster?

Answer

I thank the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity to talk about the fact that we have increased the number of nurses and

health visitors by nearly 5,000 since 2010. She is quite right to say that we need more of them; we have a growing and ageing population and higher expectations of what the NHS should be delivering. It is for that reason that we have a number of things in action: we have 52,000 nurses in training; we have a return to practice programme, which has already prepared 2,000 nurses to come back into the profession; and we are introducing nursing apprenticeships and nursing associates. We are not complacent about this issue—we know it is important—but there are a number of programmes in train to fill the gap that she has identified.

Secondary information

Type
Oral question
Reference
783 c290 
Session
2017-19
Oral question type
Supplementary
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
EU nationals Recruitment Nurses Migrant workers Brexit
Link
View this Oral question on hansard.parliament.uk