§ Mr. Gordon BrownTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will provide an estimate of the annual expenditure of the National Health Service in England on training of staff, differentiating between medical and non-medical staff.
§ Mr. MellorWe do not have centrally comprehensive information on the total expenditure incurred. However, in 1987–88 relevant revenue expenditure amounted to at least £360 million, which includes the total Revenue expenditure of the National Health Service training authority (£5.5 million) and the English national board for nursing, midwifery and health visiting (£90.5 million). Most of the remainder was incurred by regional and district health authorities. While the expenditure of the English national board for nursing, midwifery and health visiting can be attributed to nurse education and training and the summarised accounts of regional and district health authorities identify some £10 million for postgraduate medical and dental education, in general the information available does not differentiate between expenditure incurred on training medical and non-medical staff.
The National Health Service training authority is piloting a set of training activity indicators in a number of health authorities which, among other measures, are designed to identify more precisely expenditure on training on different staff groups.