§ Virginia BottomleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many vacancies there are for(a) nurses and (b) doctors ranked according to health authority (i) at the most recent date and (ii) 12 months ago. [72414]
§ Mr. HuttonThe information requested has been placed in the Library.
§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 4 July 2002,Official Report, column 516W, on health professionals, what information is collected on the number of applications to train as (a) GPs, (b) social workers, (c) physiotherapists and (d) special therapists in each of the last five years. [71944]
§ Mr. Hutton[holding answer 22 July 2002]: Information on the number of applicants for general practitioner (GP) register training places has only been collected from 2001. In 2001 the number of applications for GP register training was 2,239.
Information on applications for social worker training is not collected centrally. However, a recent social care recruitment campaign is hoping to raise the number of people applying for social work training by 5,000 by 2004. The courses will start in autumn this year and the social work admissions service will publish figures in December.
The university and colleges admissions service collect data on the number of training applications for the whole of the United Kingdom for physiotherapists.
Year Number of applicants 1997 28,534 1998 27,985 1999 26,316 2000 25,025 2001 25,579