David Simpson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to increase the number of nurses (a) qualifying and (b) subsequently working in the UK.

Mr Philip Dunne

Since May 2010, there have been record number of nurses working in the National Health Service in England.

In the Health Education England (HEE) Workforce Plan for England published in May 2016, HEE set out planned increases in the number of nurse training places in 2016-17. This is an increase of 14.8% in the total number of planned nurse training places since 2013-14.

The changes to healthcare education funding from August 2017 means that we can move away from centrally imposed number controls and financial limitations, enabling universities to increase nurse training places by the end of the Parliament.

Training and recruitment across the devolved administrations is a matter for that Government.