§ 3. Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde)What data his Department receives from hospital trusts on the number of nurses each employs. [119056]
§ The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr. John Denham)The Department receives information from national health service trusts on all nurses employed as part of the annual non-medical work force census. The census contains details of area of work, hours worked, age, gender and ethnicity. Data of that sort enable us to know that, in the year until last September, the number of nurses employed by the national health service increased by 5,580.
§ Mr. JackI thank the Minister for that information, but it is a great pity that some of the nurse numbers that he mentioned have not made their way to the Blackpool Victoria hospital, which has, since 1997, been struggling with a shortage of nurses. Thankfully, it appears that that problem is being solved, but in making its case for greater nurse numbers, the trust had difficulty in obtaining comparative benchmark nurse numbers from other local hospitals to help it to make its case to the North West Lancashire health authority to ensure that nurse numbers and activity moved upwards together. What assurances can the Minister give me that that problem will not occur again?
§ Mr. DenhamThe right hon. Gentleman says, rightly, that the problem is being tackled. Indeed, as the House meets, a meeting is taking place between Blackpool Victoria hospital and the health authority to consider nursing numbers, and I understand that there are proposals for additional funds for additional nurses to meet that hospital's needs.
The right hon. Gentleman asks for an assurance that the problem will not occur again. One thing that makes that possible is the fact that the health authority has received a 6.23 per cent. real-terms increase in finances for the coming year—part of the record level of additional resources that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned. It is that, together with the fact that we have increased the number of nurses in training where the Conservative party cut them, that makes it possible to address the need for nurses in NHS hospitals.
§ Mr. Nick Harvey (North Devon)Understandably, the Government are claiming to have brought more nurses back into the profession, which is very welcome, but are they not concerned that there are still nearly 15,000 vacancies? As they look forward to the future, are they not concerned that things might get considerably worse before they get better, given the new emphasis that they have been placing on intermediate care and caring for people in the community? Are they not concerned that the age profile of community nurses, occupational therapists and health visitors—some of the very professions on whom the burden of caring for people outside hospitals will fall—is very top-heavy, and that there will be a real problem of recruitment in those areas in the next 8 few years? What further steps will the Government take to increase dramatically the number of nurses entering the profession and to reform the pay and conditions to keep the people who are already there?
§ Mr. DenhamThe work force needs of the new, modern national health service is one of the key issues to be addressed by the modernisation action teams set up by the Prime Minister following the Budget announcement. They will obviously address the numbers of staff that we need and the expanded roles that we want nurses and other health professionals to take on board.
However, may I remind the hon. Gentleman of what we have already achieved? We inherited a difficult situation. The previous Government cut the number of nurses in training. As a result, there were about 15,000 fewer nurses available to recruit than there otherwise would have been.
The number of hard-to-fill vacancies—those that have been empty for more than three months—is about 7,000. Against that background, we got more than 5,500 extra nurses back into the national health service last year; we were able to attract more than 5,000 new nurses who were qualified but not nursing, either straight back into the national health service or into return-to-practice courses. There was a 73 per cent. increase in applications for nurse training courses last year.
All those figures show that, although there are challenges ahead, we have begun to turn the corner on the problem of nurse shortages, which has bedevilled the national health service for so long.
§ Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry)The Secretary of State said earlier that it was essential to use national health service capacity to the full. Does he agree that one of the great bottlenecks is the shortage of nurses trained for intensive care, because that ties up an awful lot of people in bed blocking when they should be out and about?
§ Mr. DenhamThe hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We did increase the number of critical care beds last winter, but there was still significant pressure on the national health service. I believe that the national health service, and the trusts and hospitals within it, know that we need to do more to address that problem in the coming winter. Obviously, one of the issues that the health service is now looking at actively throughout the country is the need to ensure that we have more trained intensive care nurses.