Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many qualified nurses were (a) working as nurses and (b) not working as nurses in the NHS in each year for which figures are available.

NHS Digital publishes workforce statistics and collects data for nurses and health visitors employed by the National Health Service trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), as bank and practice staff. This information is available from their publications page on the NHS Digital website at the following links:

Substantive qualified nurses and health visitors employed by the NHS trusts and CCGs figures are available in the monthly stats:

https://digital.nhs.uk/media/34061/NHS-Workforce-Statistics-August-2017-National-and-HEE-tables/xls/NHS_Workforce_Statistics__August_2017_National_and_HEE_tables

Nurses and health visitors employed as bank staff are available in quarterly stats:

https://digital.nhs.uk/media/32410/Bank-staff-in-NHS-Trusts-and-CCGs-June-2017/xls/Bank_staff_in_NHS_Trusts_and_CCGs__June_2017

Nurses and health visitors employed by general practitioner practices are available in bi-annual stats:

http://digital.nhs.uk/media/32064/General-Practice-Bulletin-Tables-March-2017/xls/General_Practice_Bulletin_Tables_March_20171

Data for nurses and health visitors employed by agencies and the independent sector is not held centrally.

Data for qualified nurses which are not working as nurses in the NHS is also not collected.

This is England only data and data for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is a matter for each of the governments in the devolved administrations.