Nurses

HC Deb 16 July 1962 vol 663 c30

42. Mr. Lubbock

asked the Minister of Health the estimated number of trained nurses who emigrated to Commonwealth countries in 1961.

Miss Pitt

I regret that information on which to base a reliable estimate is not available.

Mr. Lubbock

Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware of the increasingly numerous advertisements which are being inserted in the nursing journals, for example, by the Canadian health authorities offering salaries of £1,200 a year, with lower charges for board and lodging and improved fringe benefits over and above what is being offered in this country? Is not the hon. Lady concerned about the continued wastage which is occurring because of the Government's refusal to pay the nurses a living wage? Can we interpret the fact that the Minister of Health is one of the few who has not lost his job in the recent holocaust to mean a continuation of the Government's brutal treatment of the nurses' pay claim?

Miss Pitt

The short answer to the hon. Member's string of supplementary questions is that the number of nurses in the National Health Service continues steadily to rise.