Nurses: Career Development

(asked on 11th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to enable and support career options for older nurses in order to retain them in the workforce.


Answered by
Stephen Hammond Portrait
Stephen Hammond
This question was answered on 17th June 2019

NHS Improvement and NHS Employers have been working in partnership to deliver a national programme of action to support National Health Service trusts to improve retention of the nursing and clinical workforce. This provides targeted support to trusts on key issues affecting retention, such as flexible working, supporting older workers, and development and career planning.

As part of the programme, NHS Improvement and NHS Employers have held specific workshops with trusts around flexible working and supporting older workers, and they continue to publish a range of case studies and tools on the online Retention Improvement Hub to support trusts to do this.

Health Education England launched a national nurse return-to-practice (RtP) programme in September 2014, which provides experienced nurses who have taken a break or retired with training and a route back into the NHS.

The RtP programme prepares nurses to return to the Nursing and Midwifery Council register, to enable them to take up posts in the NHS, care homes, primary care or other areas.

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