Nurses and Midwives: Numbers

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, given the shortage of medical staff right across the board, should not the Government exempt them from quotas so that we can guarantee that we will have the medical staff and support staff that we need in our hospitals?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

In the long run, we want to be in a position to provide more of our staff domestically. There are concerns about the fact that we recruit from other countries, not least developing countries—I do not think that that is a long-term, sustainable position. In addition to the additional nurse training places that I mentioned, more medical training places for doctors are coming through, so we will be achieving that position in future.