Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
21. Yes, Mr Speaker; I am grateful. I want to ask about the number of nurses who have been made redundant. Lots of hospitals in my area are now recruiting from Spain, and I wonder whether an assessment has been made of the cost to the NHS of using nurses from abroad after making other nurses redundant.
Dr Poulter
Our NHS has always benefited from overseas staff bringing their skills and coming to work here, and we can all welcome that as long as they have a good standard of spoken English, which is something that we are putting right through the legislation that we are introducing. As I outlined earlier, there are now around 7,500 more nurses, midwives and health visitors working in the NHS than there were under the previous Government.