§ Mr. Cartwrightasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what assessments he has made of changes in the last six years in the amount of work performed by nursing staff in the National Health Service.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeIt is for individual health authorities to assess the amount of work performed by their nursing staff, as part of the task of determining appropriate staffing levels and the best mix of qualified and other nursing staff to meet their service needs. To aid authorities in this task, there have been factual central studies, in particular by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys on community nursing staff and by our Department's central management services on hospital based midwives, which contain information on the amount of work performed by some nursing staff.