Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the ratio of nurses and doctors is in the (a) North and (b) South of England.

NHS England publishes monthly statistics showing the size and make up of staff employed in the National Health Service in England, and these include the number of full time equivalent (FTE) doctors and nurses employed by NHS trusts and integrated care boards grouped by the seven regional NHS areas. Further information is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics

The Office for National Statistics publishes estimates of populations resident in the seven NHS England regional areas. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections/datasets/populationprojectionsforsubintegratedcareboardsbyfiveyearagegroupsandsexengland

The above information has been used to create the information in the following table which shows, for each of the seven NHS regions, the number of FTE doctors, nurses, and health visitors from which a ratio of nurses to doctors for different geographies can be calculated as well as a comparison of the ratio of the number of doctors and nurses per 10,000 population:

Sources: NHS Workforce Statistics, published by NHS England, and the Population projections for sub-integrated care boards by five-year age groups and sex, England, published by the Office for National Statistics.