§ 2. Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam)What assessment his Department has made of the number of additional nurses required to meet the requirements of the NHS plan and enable private sector providers to comply with the Care Standards Act 2000 and regulations made thereunder. [151949]
§ The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Alan Milburn)The NHS plan contains a commitment for 20,000 more nurses to be provided by 2004. Private sector providers are represented on the new local organisations charged with planning the numbers of nursing staff needed in local communities.
§ Mr. BurstowThe Secretary of State will know that about one in four nurses is due to retire in the next four to five years. The Royal College of Nursing, in its report last year, said that there would be a shortage of about 57,000 nurses over the next five years. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept, therefore, that increasing the number of posts in the NHS potentially increases the number of vacancies? Will he guarantee that in the effort to recruit more nurses, the international recruitment nursing director will not strip bare developing countries of their valued nurses? Will he also ensure that there will be a dramatic expansion of nurse training places in this country, so that we can grow our own nurses to fill the vacancies?
§ Mr. MilburnThat is precisely what is happening. It is true that nurse training places have been cut in the past; they were certainly cut under the previous Government in the mid-1990s. The number of nurses was cut in the mid-1990s, too. The national health service is still feeling the effects of that. However, the number of nurses is now consistently rising, the number of training places is up by one third, and the number of UK-based 803 applications for nursing and midwifery courses has increased by more than 56 per cent. in the past two years alone.
§ Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)Will my right hon. Friend make it clear to the private sector that before it gets the same input of taxpayers' money that it got last year, it is essential that it complies with care standards? That is a question of the private sector having to come up to those standards not after new nurses have been trained, but before. That is a simple lesson that I would have thought would be in the interests of every patient.
§ Mr. MilburnMy hon. Friend is right: standards should be high wherever care is provided. That is particularly the case if the resources for that care, whether it is given in the private or the public sector, are provided at NHS expense. Standards are what count, which is why the action that we are taking to raise standards and to expand the number of nurses working in the NHS and the health care system overall is so important.
§ Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden)The RCN survey shows that 70,000 trained nurses are staying at home, but in his evidence to the Nurses and Midwives Pay Review Body the Secretary of State said:
The central message of the evidence from the Departments was that there was no case for a special pay response from us this year on grounds of recruitment and retention.What changed his mind?
§ Mr. MilburnThe difference between this Government and the previous one is that we are paying nurses' pay awards in full, not staging them. Indeed, there is extra pay to address shortages in particular areas, so where need is highest, but where the cost of living is also the highest, we are paying extra money to nurses—up to £1,000 a year extra. There is more money for ward sisters. Last year, there was more money for staff nurses. The year before, there was more money for newly qualified nurses. All the investment that we are making is contributing to the expansion in NHS nursing numbers.
We all know the hon. Lady's view of the NHS. She says that she occasionally visits NHS hospitals to see what they are like for those who do not have the privilege of private health insurance. There are two views of the NHS: there are those who use it and those who regard it as a spectator sport.