NHS Costs (Hansard, 12 May 1994)

§ Dr. Mawhinney

[holding answer 22 March 1994]: The information is shown in the tables. The latest staffing information available is as at 30 September 1992 and the latest expenditure information is for the 1992–93 financial year. Comparable expenditure figures for 1977–78 are not available. The number of managers has been deliberately increased since the mid-1980s—not just since the reforms —because the service was previously undermanaged. Much of the increase arises from the reclassification of existing staff—including many senior nurses—as managers. General and senior managers still account for only 2 per cent. of the total national health service workforce in England and 3 per cent. of the total NHS expenditure on salaries and wages. The number of administrative and clerical staff in clinically-related posts has increased over the last few years in order to free clinical staff to concentrate their skills and experience on direct patient care.

Table 1
Numbers¹ of doctors, consultants, nurses and midwives, administrators and other NHS staff in England—whole-time equivalents.
	1977	1982	1987	1992
Doctors²	24,250	27,250	28,040	32,360
Consultants³	10,470	11,980	13,280	15,290
Nursing and Midwifery⁴	340,760	394,040	397,910	397,090
Administrators—including General and Senior managers introduced from 1986	99,040	108,800	114,600	151,700
Others⁵	272,530	285,490	239,360	214,220
Totals	747,050	827,560	793,190	810,660

Source: Medical Workforce Census. Non Medical Workforce Census. Form KM49.

220W

Notes:

¹All the figures have been independently rounded to the nearest 10.

²Medical staff, locum doctors, and locum consultants. Locum consultants cannot be separately identified for 1977, for consistency they are included with doctors for all years.

³Medical and dental consultants—but excluding locum consultants.

⁴The nursing and midwifery figures exclude agency nurses and agency midwives. Figures for 1977 are not directly comparable with 1982 and later years due to a reduction in the length of their working week from 40 hours to 37.5 hours. From 1989 Project 2000 nurse training was introduced. To maintain comparability with earlier years the figures for 1992 include 18,300 Project 2000 students. Unlike traditional nurse learners, these students are not employees and are not normally included in workforce figures.

⁵The "Others" figure includes the following staff groups; dental (excluding consultants), professional and technical, professions allied to medicine, scientific and professional, ancillary, maintenance, works, ambulance (including ambulance officers and control assistants), and others who have not been classified elsewhere.

Table 2
Expenditure on salaries and wages by health authorities and NHS trusts in England in real terms
	1982–83 £000s	1987–88 £000s	⁵1992–93 £000s
Doctors¹	[1,285,586]	858,424	1,151,866
Consultants²	[note 1 refers]	785,139	960,449
Nurses and Midwives	4,627,292	5,338,438	6,089,087
Administrators³	1,155,881	1,245,645	1,992,881
Others⁴	3,341,250	3,302,913	3,335,078
Total	10,410,009	11,530,559	13,529,361

Source: Annual accounts and annual financial returns of district, regional and special health authorities and NHS trusts.

Notes:

¹ The yearly figures for doctors are not directly comparable because the 1982–83 figure for doctors includes expenditure on consultants. Separate figures were not available. For subsequent years separate figures have been provided.

²The consultant figure is for medical and dental consultants.

³1987–88 and 1992–93 figures also include general and senior managers following redesignation of staff groups.

⁴"Others" consists of all salaries and wages not included in the four other categories.

⁵ Figures for 1992–93 are provisional.

⁶ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) deflator has been used to convert figures to 1992 prices.

⁷ Comparable figures for 1977–78 are not available.