Nurses

HC Deb 25 January 1999 vol 324 cc58-9W

Mr. Barry Jones

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many nurses there were in(a) 1980 and (b) 1990; and if he will make a statement. [66035]

Mr. Jon Owen Jones

The available information, which relates to all staff in the nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff group, is as follows:

Nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff, Wales1
Year	Number
1980	20,778
1990	25,017
1 Whole-time equivalent numbers in post at 30 September excluding pre-registration learners

Mr. Swayne

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) how many whole-time equivalent nurses were employed in Wales on 30 April 1997; [66497]

(2) how many whole-time equivalent nurses are currently employed in Wales. [66498]

Mr. Jon Owen Jones

Information on the whole-time equivalent number of staff in the nursing, midwifery and health visiting group is collected centrally as at the last day of each quarter. The available information is given in the following table.

Nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff, Wales
Date	Number
31 March 1997	23,513
30 September 1998	23,691

Mr. Wigley

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps he is taking to encourage more people to enter the nursing profession. [66373]

Mr. Jon Owen Jones

In 1998 there were over 8,000 applications for around 1,000 student places for pre-registration nursing and midwifery education in Wales. While this suggests that there is not a recruitment problem to nurse training in Wales, action is being taken to ensure that this situation continues. This includes ensuring that entry to pre-registration programmes remains as wide as possible; offering a range of programmes from diploma to undergraduate level all of which lead to registration; and encouraging the development of recruitment initiatives by individual education providers including formal links with local schools and colleges.

Mr. Wigley

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on nursing staff recruitment in the NHS in Wales. [66164]

Mr. Jon Owen Jones

Information received from workforce planning data and the nurse executive survey in 1998 showed that there were around 500 funded vacancies for qualified nurses in the NHS in Wales. About 600 students completed their training and qualified in 1998 to meet this need. Recruitment difficulties are limited to a small number of individual Trusts but the year on year increases in training numbers should help to alleviate such problems.