§ Baroness Uddinasked Her Majesty's Government: Whether the Department of Health has planned a recruitment drive to attract specialist speech therapists [HL136]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)The Government are implementing a range of measures to recruit more healthcare professionals, including speech and language therapists. These include improving pay and conditions, encouraging the National Health Service to become a better, more flexible and diverse employer, increasing training, investing in childcare and continuing professional development, attracting back returners and running national and international recruitment campaigns. As at September 2002, there were 5,960 speech and language therapists employed in the NHS, an increase of 1,089 or 22 per cent since 1997.