HC Deb 03 April 1941 vol 370 cc1168-73
Miss Ward

( by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Health whether he is in a position to make any further statement with regard to the nursing profession?

Mr. E. Brown

As the House will recollect, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Health, in the course of the recent Debate on Woman-Power, made a statement on the position of the Hospital Nursing Service. With the permission of the House, I propose to-day to amplify what was then said.

Most hon. Members will be aware that the existing and prospective shortage of nurses in hospitals is giving rise to anxiety. Thanks to the reinforcements provided by the Civil Nursing Reserve the emergency hospitals dealing with civil and military casualties are for the most part adequately staffed. Our main concern is with the hospitals—not less important from a national standpoint— which provide for the general needs of the civil population and in particular those dealing with infectious disease and the old and infirm. Here the shortage is in some cases acute. Available beds cannot be used on account of shortage of nurses, and staffs are carrying on under increasing difficulties. To meet this situation, I propose to appeal to the women and girls of the country to enrol for nursing service in any part of the country. Those who join as nursing auxiliaries will not be sent to hospitals dealing with infectious disease or mental cases or to sanatoria, unless they volunteer for this service. The appeal will be especially addressed to the age groups which are shortly to be registered by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service, and he has undertaken to secure that the vital importance of the nursing service, a service which is pre-eminently women's work, shall be brought to the notice of those registering.

I wish to stress in partcular the importance of securing a larger number of women who are prepared to take up nursing as a life career and to enter as student nurses one of the hospitals recognised as training schools. Those who are prepared to join on this basis and accept training in the hospital allotted to them will receive salaries at the rate of £40 a year rising by annual increments of £5. It is proposed also to increase the salaries payable to members of the Civil Nursing Reserve in residential posts in hospitals. The salaries for the assistant nurse and trained nurse include a sum representing the employer's contribution towards superannuation and as from the first pay week in February the rates will be:

For nursing auxiliaries £55 a year
For assistant nurses £70” ”
For trained nurses £105” ”

in each case with board, lodging and laundry and indoor and outdoor uniforms. These rates will apply to all members of the Reserve, both existing and future, who are in full-time employment in hospitals, and in so far as expenditure on nursing staff is chargeable to the Emergency Hospital Scheme, the cost of the new rates, as of the existing ones, will be reimbursed by the Government.

Further, it is proposed that those who respond to the appeal and are accepted will receive a guarantee of a year's employment and will be asked to undertake to serve for that period. Recruits who join as nursing auxiliaries will receive a short course of instruction in hospitals during which they will receive 10s. a week as pocket money, together with board, lodging and laundry.

I turn now to a matter of long-term policy. As the House is aware, the Inter-departmental Committee which sat under the chairmanship of the Earl of Athlone made a number of important recommendations, consideration of which was unavoidably deferred by the outbreak of war. Of these perhaps the most important related to the machinery for fixing the salaries and pensions of nurses on a national basis, and recommended the establishment of Salaries Committees for this purpose analogous to the Burn-ham Committees in the teaching profession. As has been already stated by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, the Government accept this recommendation, and I propose to take immediate steps to consult the various interests concerned with a view to establishing the necessary procedure. This, however, will take time, and in view of the many different types of nursing work and the great variety of conditions which obtain even in hospitals of the same type, the examination of the problem by the committees when established is likely to be a slow process. In the meantime it is in my view very desirable—and indeed in view of the many competing demands on the services of women necessary—that hospital authorities in general should review the salaries now paid to their nursing staffs in the light of the new rates which I have already mentioned. In making any comparison between these rates, which have designedly been laid down in the simplest possible form, and the rates now paid by the authority, it will no doubt be necessary to take account of a number of special factors such as superannuation rights.

There is one further matter which I should mention. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the establishment of a Nursing Division in the Ministry. I have already on the staff of the Ministry at headquarters and in our Regional offices 53 State registered nurses, partly recruited for the E.M.S. services and partly engaged on the public health and hospital work of the Department. Arrangements have now been made for the whole of this work to be grouped on its professional side under the general direction of a Chief Nursing Officer with two deputies. I have appointed as Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Matron of the Emergency Hospital Service Miss Katherine Watt, C.B.E., R.R.C., who has had a most distinguished nursing career culminating in the post of Matron in Chief of the Royal Air Force and has since shortly before the outbreak of war been principal Matron of the Emergency Medical Service One of the posts of deputy will, in my view, be most appropriately filled by the appointment of a nurse with current experience of hospital management, and I hope to make such an appointment at a very early date. I also propose that the second deputy should be a nurse with special experience of public health and domiciliary nursing services. I may add that I have asked my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to make the Nursing Division her special concern.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is making similar arrangements subject to such minor modifications as the conditions in Scotland require.

Mr. Rhys Davies

In dealing with this very important problem, will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind one point which emerged before the Inter-Departmental Committee, namely, that a number of girls and women are willing to serve in hospitals if they are not thrust into nurses' homes? Can they not engage in this service and go to the hospitals to do their day's work, going home in the evenings when their homes are near the hospital?

Mr. Brown

That is one of the important points to be considered in the examination which will take place. It has not been found easy to go forward, but I have felt that this particular subject was of such vital importance that I felt impelled to take these forward steps now.

Dr. Summerskill

While I realise that the subject of nursing is of very great importance, and while I welcome any suggestion made by the Minister of Health—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I must remind the hon. Lady that this is not a Debate. She is not entitled to do more than ask questions.

Dr. Summerskill

I apologise; I was about to say, Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the new scales of wages which he has just announced are not as high for a qualified nurse—£55 a year— as a girl can receive in domestic service to-day? Does he think that this will change the position?

Mr. Brown

I have reason to believe that these scales will be regarded, taken as a whole and in the light of what I have stated, as a very great forward movement, and they will mean very heavy extra expense for all hospitals concerned as well as for the Government emergency scheme.

Mr. Kirkwood

Is the Minister of Health aware that I have visited a great many local hospitals where my folk are at the moment as a result of the "Blitz" that happened on Clydebank, and that at every hospital I have visited discontent among the nurses is rampant because of the scandalous wages paid?

Mr. Frankel

Does the right hon. Gentleman realise the repercussions which this will have financially on the local authorities, and does he propose to make any subsidies to them?

Mr. Brown

I will take into consideration any representations that are made when the facts are brought out. I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for raising the point, because for the London County Council I am told that the suggested increase for nurses in all grades would involve an additional expenditure of £70,000 a year.

Sir T. Moore

Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that these salaries, even if they are such a step forward as he has said, are either worthy or attractive enough to get the right type of candidates?

Mr. Brown

I must ask the hon. and gallant Member to await the opinion of (hose who are really competent to express a view in regard to these as compared with the old scales.

Mrs. Hardie

Will the Minister consider training some men as nurses under the same wages and conditions?

Dr. Summerskill

At £55 a year.

Mr. Brown

There are, of course, male nurses, and they do very valuable work for the patients in regard to whom their service are appropriate.

Mr. McGovern

Are these wages intended to drive girls into munition work?

Mr. Brown

No, Sir. I have reason to believe that they will help to solve what has been one of the most difficult of our problems.

Mrs. Tate

The right hon. Gentleman obviously comes within the definition of an optimist.

Sir Stanley Reed

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the fact that a very considerable number of nurses marry and therefore do not qualify for superannuation allowances, he would not consider, in connection with this scheme, a provident fund which would benefit both those who do their full term and those who retire before the completion of that term?

Mr. Brown

That will be one of the long-term questions to be discussed.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden

Will my right hon. Friend compare the existing offer which he has indicated with recent agreements in regard to shop workers, bus conductresses and factory workers in the London area?

Mr. Brown

My hon. Friend must understand that we are not talking about a total emolument in terms of actual pay; all the other things I mentioned have to be taken into account.