HC Deb 12 February 1988 vol 127 cc370-1W
Mr. Bill Walker

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many doctors, dentists, nurses and other professional staff were employed by the Tayside health board in 1978, 1985 and 1986.

Mr. Michael Forsyth

The information is shown in the following table.

Whole-time equivalent doctors, dentists, nurses and other professional staff1 employed by Tayside health board at 30 September
Type of staff 51978 1985 1986
Hospital and community2
Doctors 546.8 552.0 536.0
Dentists 71.5 66.7 65.0
Qualified nurses3 2,721.0 3,259.0 3,385.5
Scientists 41.0 45.3 44.9
Paramedical staff and speech therapists 5260.8 307.0 318.4
Pharmacists4 542.0 47.9 44.5
Opticians4 5— 0.2 0.2
1 The data refer to qualified staff only. Students, helpers and other similar categories of staff are excluded.
2 Includes general practitioners employed part-time in hospitals.
3 The conditioned hours, on which whole-time equivalents is based, for nurses changed from 40 in 1979 to 3.5 hours

thereafter.
4 Excludes high street pharmacists and opticians.
5 Figures for 1978 for qualified Paramedical staff, Speech Therapists, Pharmacists and Opticians are not readily available. 1979 data are therefore shown.