Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the number of (a) district nurses and (b) qualified nurses, excluding health visitors, working in community services at NHS organisations in England since May 2010; and what steps he is taking to increase such numbers.

The following table shows the numbers of qualified nurses (excluding health visitors), district nurses and health visitors in the NHS in England since May 2010. It covers nurses and midwives working in community based services, determined by the area of work in which they perform the greatest share of their duties. It does not necessarily indicate the setting in which they work.

Since May 2010 the overall number of nurses has increased by 3,379 (1.1%). As part of the Government's response to the Francis Inquiry, many of these increased nurses have been in hospital settings. However, the Government's longer term ambition is to train increasing numbers with the skills to work across all clinical settings. The Mandate to Health Education England recognises the need for a greater emphasis on community, primary and multi-integrated health and care, requiring working in multidisciplinary teams to break down barriers between primary and secondary care.

Health Education England is responsible for delivering a better health and healthcare workforce for England and for ensuring a secure future supply. This year Health Education England has increased the number of training places for district nurses by 7.2%.

Health Education England is also taking a number of other measures to increase the number of nurses working in the community. These include running a campaign to encourage registered nurses who have left to come back to work for the NHS, taking action to reduce attrition from training, encouraging more nurses to work in the community, and ensure that they have the most up to date knowledge and skills to provide high quality care for people with complex healthcare needs across all care settings.

NHS England has also commissioned the Queen’s Nursing Institution to develop a workforce planning tool to support local areas in making sure they have the right number of community nurses for their needs.