§ LORD BROCKWAYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to meet the shortage of nursing staff as illustrated by the closing of two wards of Wexham Hospital, Slough.]
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (BARONESS SEROTA)My Lords, a nation-wide publicity campaign to stimulate recruitment has been launched and will continue throughout the coming year, and this will be complemented by continuing local action by hospital authorities. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has also announced this week that he is setting up an independent Committee, under the chairmanship of Professor Asa Briggs, Vice-Chancellor of Sussex University, to review the role of the nurse and the midwife in the hospital and the community and the education and training required for the role, so that the best use is made of available manpower to meet present needs and the needs of an integrated Health Service.
§ LORD BROCKWAYMy Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, and having in mind the increase in wages which is to be given to nurses, may I ask her whether it is not a little ironical that, while we are building these marvellous new hospitals like the Wexham Hospital, we just have not the staff to put into them? Would it not be possible now to carry out a recruitment campaign 322 among the married ex-nurses to staff these hospitals, and for staff to help clean the wards? Secondly, is not the most important issue to give a new status to nurses, and to relieve them of the chores which limit their serving as nurses?
§ BARONESS SEROTAMy Lords, we are all anxious to staff the new hospitals to the most effective extent. We are, however, facing a manpower situation affecting nurse recruitment due to social, demographic and economic trends. Your Lordships will be aware, for example, that the number of women in the community of the age of 18 is beginning to fall following the post-war bulge. We are also doing what we can to recruit those trained nurses who have broken their careers for marriage and to bring up their families, and who now wish to come back into nursing. I entirely agree with my noble friend in his desire to see that the status and work of nurses is fully recognised by the community, and that is one of the reasons why my right honourable friend and I decided to set up the independent inquiry.
§ LORD BROCKWAYMy Lords, while I appreciate that the Wexham Hospital is only a typical example of many hospitals throughout the country, is my noble friend aware that in Slough the Red Cross Society are now under-taking crash training programmes in nursing in order to provide staff? Unsatisfactory as this is, will she try to encourage some method by which adequate staff may be made available to deal with the large number of people waiting for treatment in these hospitals?
§ BARONESS SEROTAMy Lords, I agree with my noble friend that this is a question of recruiting additional nurses, and not a shortage of money. I am aware that the hospital is currently reviewing its policy on the recruitment of nurses, and also considering the establishment of a training school for pupil nurses which they hope will increase the flow of nurses into the hospital.
§ LORD PLATTMy Lords, are the Government aware (by which I perhaps mean, is the noble Lord, Lord Brockway aware) that there is a strict limit to the number of married women one can take back into nursing? Naturally, married women who have young children do not want to do night work in hospitals, and 323 if too many married women are employed, it means that the regular staff are employed almost entirely on night work, night after night.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy Lords may I ask my noble friend whether it is a fact, as stated in a popular newspaper to-day, that for this campaign recruitment drive a picture of a most attractive girl is to be used; and that this girl has said that she does not like sickness and does not like sick people? Will my noble friend use her efforts to get this particular picture removed?—because if it is not removed it will defeat its own object.
§ BARONESS SEROTAMy Lords, I have seen the newspaper report to which my noble friend refers. 1 asked from the beginning that if possible we should use nurses in our advertising— though in this case the girl represented only a potential recruit. The girls, as all noble Lords know, are absolute "smashers", but unfortunately the pictures were not an overwhelming success. This is an experience which we have all shared from time to time. As a result of trying to get the best possible pictures we could, we found that we were taking up too much hospital time and, with the greatest good will on the part of matrons, we felt it wrong to do this. I can assure my noble friend that we shall certainly not continue to use for this campaign the photograph of any person who says that she cannot stand people when they are sick. I can also assure her that in the next round of advertising we shall use nurses.
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILLMy Lords, as I find my noble friend so forth-coming this afternoon, may I ask her another question? Having regard to the fact that she has just announced that there is to be an inquiry into the conditions of the nurses and midwives, and that the chairman of the inquiry, Professor Briggs, has already been appointed, would she not agree with me that again it would be in the interests of this whole campaign if the Government were to choose a matron, or a nurse in the hierarchy, as the chairman of this particular Committee? I have never met Professor Briggs: he is probably a very nice man—
§ BARONESS SUMMERSKILL—but does he know as much about nurses and midwives as some woman might know?
§ BARONESS SEROTAMy Lords, the noble Baroness has, as usual, expressed herself in very strong terms on what is a very difficult matter for anyone to decide. I can assure her that it is the wish of the nursing profession themselves that this inquiry should have an independent chairman. I can also assure her that there will be nurses and midwives, I hope over the range of the service, as members of the Committee.
§ BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRAD-FELLTEMy Lords, could the noble Baroness tell us what progress has been made towards the establishment of créches and nurseries for the children of a great many young married women who would willingly come and give their time to nursing if they had a place to leave the children?
§ BARONESS SEROTAMy Lords, the noble Baroness will be aware that my right honourable friend has issued guidance to hospitals on this matter, and that many hospitals have set up créches of this kind. I cannot give her the exact number of hospitals that have done so, but if she would like details I will gladly get them for her.