Flexible Working (Hansard, 3 November 2003)

§ Mr. Hutton

This Government recognise that to build quality services, the national health service relies upon the skill and dedication of staff, of whom over 70 percent. are women.

Part-time working and extended maternity leave are well-established features of NHS employment, and have been for some time. However, as part of the drive to support all staff in the NHS, the NHS Plan, launched in July 2000 introduced the Improving Working Lives Standard, requiring a commitment by every NHS employer to offer a wide range of flexible employment opportunities by April 2003.

The NHS increasingly offers a wide variety of flexible working opportunities for all staff and supports this as a principle in all cases. A central requirement is to deliver practical measures which address the potential conflict between offering people the opportunity to work more flexibly and maintaining continuity of care on a 24 hours a day, seven days a week basis.

The NHS childcare strategy has provided central funding of over £70 million over three years to develop up to 150 extra on-site nursery facilities by 2004. So far, 140 nursery schemes, including both new and extensions to existing nurseries have been funded. Funding has been provided to help trusts and primary care trusts to employ childcare co-ordinators. The Government have committed a further £100 million to extend the NHS childcare strategy to ensure that the needs of all staff are met, including other forms of childcare for pre-school children and for older children, and to upgrade and subsidise existing NHS nurseries.