§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list nursing manpower levels in National Health Service hospitals in each year since 1979; and which district or regional health authorities have been affected most resulting from decreases in such manpower.
§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke[pursuant to his reply, 18 July 1985, c. 234]: Figures for regional health authorities are shown in the table. We could not extract the information for district health authorities without disproportionate cost. We do not yet have figures for 1984 at this level of detail. Apart from small decreases in four regions in 1982, the figures show nursing manpower levels in hospitals have continued to increase since 1979.
973W
(England) NHS Hospital Nursing Staff* Whole time equivalent† 30 September Region 1979 ‡1980 ‡1981 1982 1983 Northern 21,300 22,500 23,300 23,500 26,800 Yorkshire 24,000 25,100 26,900 26,600 29,800 Trent 28,900 29,000 30,800 31,100 35,200 East Anglian 11,500 11,900 12,500 12,800 14,500 North west Thames 24,000 24,100 26,000 25,600 28,000 North east Thames 27,900 28,100 29,100 31,500 34,600 South east Thames 25,900 26,500 28,000 27,800 31,000 South west Thames 21,300 21,700 22,600 22,200 24,800 Wessex 17,600 18,200 19,000 19,300 21,900 Oxford 12,800 13,500 14,300 14,500 16,600 South western 21,200 22,400 23,400 23,400 26,100 West Midlands 32,200 33,900 36,100 36,900 40,800 Mersey 18,800 19,200 20,000 20,000 22,300 North Western 27,800 29,700 31,400 32,300 37,100 Totalob/ 315,200 325,900 343,300 347,600 389,700 * Includes hospital midwives and hospital agency nurses and midwives. † Figures are WTE rounded to nearest 100. ‡ In 1980 the working week for nursing and midwifery staff was reduced from 40 to 37½ hours and part of the increase of WTE's between 1979 and 1981 will be accounted for by additional staff recruited as a direct result of this change. ║ Due to rounding the sum of the component figures may not agree with the totals.