§ Lord Taylor of Warwickasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether—
and, if so, why and how they intend to address the situation. [HL1255]
- (a) a quarter of National Health Service nurses are now aged 50 or over and most of them plan to retire when they are 58; and
- (b) there is a 15 to 20 per cent drop-out rate from nurse training courses;
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)As at September 2002, 19 per cent of qualified nurses employed in the National Health Service were aged 50 and over. This is in line with the expected age profile of the workforce. Information is not collected centrally on when nurses intend to retire.
Extending the participation of older staff is a key part of our strategy to meet our workforce targets. The Department of Health is promoting flexible retirement through the Improving Working Lives initiative to encourage nurses to consider alternatives to retiring, such as reducing their commitment or taking on new roles.
The latest complete information on attrition from nurse training courses relates to the 1997–98 cohort and was 20 per cent. The Human Resource Performance Framework published in October 2000 sets a target of 13 per cent attrition for students entering nurse training in 2000–01. Workforce development confederations are working with higher education institutions to ensure that this target is achieved.
Ethnic origin 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 White 391 (97.3%) 733 (97.1%) 729 (98.2%) 755 (97.7%) 639 (96.5%) Asian/Asian-British 6 (1.5%) 13 (1.7%) 2 (0.3%) 8 (1.0%) 13 (2.0%) Black/Black-British 4 (1.0%) 7 (0.9%) 4 (0.5%) 4 (0.5%) 5 (0.8%) Chinese/Oriental —. 1 (0.1%) 1 (0.1%) 2 (0.3%) — Mixed — 1 (0.1%) 2 (0.3%) 1 (0.1%) 5 (0.8%) Other 1 (0.2%) — 4 (0.5%) 3 (0.4%) —