HC Deb 27 November 2002 vol 395 c295W
28. Fiona Mactaggart

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on progress towards equality in employment between women and men in Northern Ireland. [81626]

Mr. Browne

The Programme for Government contains a commitment to bring forward a cross-Departmental gender equality strategy during 2003. This will strengthen work being done under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

September 1997 September 2002 Increase
Count WTE1 Count WTE Count WTE
Qualified nurses2 12,994 11,085.22 14,137 11,933.85 1,143 848.63
Unqualified nurses 3,799 3,253.37 4,506 3,902.51 707 649.14
Bank nurses3 1,356 n/a 3,048 n/a 1,692 n/a
Total 18,149 n/a 21,691 n/a 3,542 n/a
1 Whole Time Equivalent
2 Figures for qualified nurses include health visitors, district nurses, midwives, school nurses, community psychiatric nurses, student health visitors, student midwives and other qualified nurses.
3 Bank nurses maintain service delivery by covering staffing shortfalls and fluctuating workloads. Due to the variable nature of their employment it is not possible to obtain accurate whole time equivalent data with which to measure their input to the service.

Source:

Human Resource Management System