§ Mr. KirkwoodTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he is taking to provide for the retraining and redeployment of nurse teachers who are displaced as a result of the proposed reduction in the number of nursing students.
§ Mr. AncramThe health and personal social services staff redeployment unit was established in June 1993 with the remit of setting up a clearing house system to allow194W staff who are declared redundant by their current employers to have first opportunity of applying for any posts for which recruitment is taking place elsewhere in the Northern Ireland health and personal social services. The fully computerised system agreed with participating employers covers all health and social services boards, units of management, health and social services trusts, together with the Northern Ireland Central Services Agency and the National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting.
Following the introduction of the clearing house system, the staff redeployment unit has been encouraged to extend its activities to include the provision of information to employees faced with redundancy; the investigation of employment opportunities for redundant staff outside the statutory health and personal social services in Northern Ireland; and measures to enhance the employment opportunities for newly qualified nurses who are unable to obtain employment on completion of training.
To date, the Northern Ireland national board has not found it necessary to make any of its nurse tutors redundant and has achieved reductions in staffing levels by means of voluntary early retirement.
§ Mr. KirkwoodTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will provide a breakdown of the spending on nurse education and training for the years 1990–91 to 1993–94 identifying the spending allocated to(a) pre-registration education, (b) post-registration education and (c) nurse teacher training and support.
§ Mr. AncramIt is not possible to identify separately spending on pre- and post-registration education. Otherwise the information is as follows:
Nurse education and training £ million Nurse teacher training £000's 1990–91 10.7 180 1991–92 15.4 253 1992–93 27.4 246 1993–94 27.3 119 Notes:
1. The figures for Nurse Education and Training include National Board revenue, the cost of the community nurse training programme, the training element of the cost of salaries and bursaries for the years 1992–93 and 1993–94 and the implementation costs of Project 2000.
2. It is not possible to identify the training element in salaries and bursaries for the years 1990–91 and 1991–92.
§ Mr. KirkwoodTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the total cost of the changes in nurse education since 1989 which result from the introduction of Project 2000.
§ Mr. AncramIn the period 1 April 1989 to 31 March 1994, a total of £7.96 million has been allocated to the four health and social services boards and the Northern Ireland National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting, to meet the additional costs of implementing Project 2000.