Minister of State (): The NHS Workforce is the key
component of the NHS. It is one of the largest single employers
in the country and globally. Around 5% of the England workforce
is employed by the NHS, so the way in which we value the
workforce matters, both in ensuring delivery of health services
and as a role model for other employers.
The Autumn statement has made up-to £14.1bn available to Health
and Social Care service over the next two years. This funding
will help enable us to continue to support the NHS in England. I
am therefore pleased to report that there are a record number of
people working in the NHS. Latest data for September 2022 shows
almost 1.4 million full time equivalent staff working across NHS
hospital trusts and primary care in England.
Within this workforce there are a record number of over 168,000
full time equivalent doctors across hospitals and general
practice. This includes over 131,000 in NHS hospitals and over
37,000 in general practice. There are also a record number of
over 333,000 nurses across the NHS, with over 316,000 working in
NHS hospital and over 16,000 across primary care.
We now have over 32,000 more nurses now than we had in September
2019, putting us well on the way to meeting the Government’s
commitment of 50,000 more nurses across hospital and general
practice settings by March 2024. Over the last three years, this
speed of growth in nursing numbers is faster than we have seen
since 2009 when current recording began.
Internationally trained staff are an important component of the
50,000 nurse target. They have been an integral part of the NHS
since its inception in 1948 and continue to play a vital role. We
hugely value their contribution to providing excellent care.
Whilst we are working hard to increase our homegrown supply of
health and social care staff, ethical international recruitment
remains a key element of achieving our workforce commitments.
I am also pleased to see that other key NHS hospital workforce
groups continue to grow, such as the now almost 18,000
professionally qualified ambulance staff, 12% more than in 2019
and over 81,000 allied health professionals, 20% more than 2019.
These staff work hand in hand with the over 380,000 clinical
support staff who are so vital to the effective delivery of
patient care.
We are also growing new professions to support patient care and I
am pleased to see over 2,500 physician associates and over 4,600
nursing associates working across hospitals and primary care.
We also have a very healthy pipeline of people training to work
in the NHS. There are record numbers of medical students in
undergraduate training and graduates from recent expansion in
medical school places and schools are starting to enter
foundation training. Large numbers of candidates also continue to
choose courses in nursing and midwifery in England, and since
September 2020 all eligible nursing, midwifery and allied health
profession students have received a non-repayable training grant
of a minimum of £5,000 per academic year.
For the third consecutive year we have seen over 26,000
acceptances to undergraduate Nursing and Midwifery programmes.
There were 3,700 more acceptances in 2022 than in 2019 – a 16%
increase. This is alongside substantial expansion of nursing
apprenticeships, with over 3,000 people starting in 2021/22
compared to less than 1,000 in 2019/20.
However, in spite of the growth we are seeing, we know health and
care staff are facing ongoing challenges. The rising demand for
services due to the pandemic, service recovery and an ageing
population means that staff continue to work under pressure.
Therefore, alongside expanding the workforce we must therefore
work to retain the staff that we have and ensure NHS is an
attractive place to work.
The NHS People Plan and the NHS retention programme are focused
on improving the experience of staff working in the NHS, as well
as seeking to address the reasons that they leave. This means
ensuring we support staff health and wellbeing, improve the
leadership and workplace culture of NHS organisations, and
increase opportunities to work flexibly.
To help with flexible working, we are making changes to NHS
pension rules to help retain experienced doctors and nurses, and
remove barriers for retired staff who want to return. We have
therefore launched a consultation on detailed proposals to enable
staff to work more flexibly up to and beyond retirement age, and
protect them from unintentionally higher annual allowance pension
tax charges driven by inflation.
Looking to the future, we must ensure that the future workforce
is both large enough to meet the challenges it will face and has
the right people with the right skills working in the right
places to address future demand.
To that end, we have commissioned NHS England to develop a Long
-term Workforce Plan for the NHS workforce for the next 15 years.
This will look at the mix and number of staff required across all
parts of the country and will set out the actions and reforms
that will be needed to reduce supply gaps and improve retention.
We have committed to independently verifying this report, and
publishing it next year.
