§ Mr. Butcherasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the current total of employees in the National Health Service compared with 1974 and 1970; and what are the corresponding figures for doctors and nurses within these totals.
NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE MANPOWER: ENGLAND AS AT 30 SEPTEMBER WHOLE-TIME EQUIVALENTS 1971 1974 1978 All staff and independent contractors*† … … … … 663,948‡ 706,849 796,304 of which: Directly employed staff … … … … … … 626,193 667,837 754,683 Independent contractors*† … … … … … … 37,755 39,012 41,621 All doctors … … … … … … … … 46,392 50,326 55,544 of which: Directly employed medical staff … … … … … 24907 27,965 32,075 Practitioners … … … … … … … … 21,485 22,361 23,469 Nurses and midwives (all directly employed) … … … 282,395 309,063 347,495 * The figures for independent contractors are numbers of general medical practitioners, general dental practitioners, ophthalmic medical practitioners, ophthalmic opticians and dispensing opticians in the general ophthalmic services. Estimated numbers of general practice pharmacists—that is chemists, drug stores and appliance contractors—are based on the number of establishments, not actual number practising, and the estimate for 1978 is not yet available. These have therefore, been excluded. †The figures for general medical practitioners relate to 1 October. Some general practitioners are also employed on a part-time basis in the community health service and such effort is included in the totals for "directly-employed medical staff". This implies an element of double-counting. Figures for the general ophthalmic services relate to 31 December. There is a small unquantifiable number of ophthalmic medical practitioners who are also general medical practitioners, which again implies a minor element of double-counting. ‡On NHS reorganisation, on 1.4.74 staff previously employed by local authority health and social service departments were transferred to area health authorities. Estimates of the numbers of staff in this category have been made so that the figure for 1971 is as consistent as possible with those for 1974 and 1978. §Includes whole-time equivalents of hospital and community health medical staff except locums, hospital practitioners, part-time medical officers, clinical assistants, general medical practitioners participating in hospital staff funds and occasional sessional staff in community health service. ¶ Excludes agency nurses and agency midwives.