Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) individual and (b) full-time equivalent registered mental health nurses have been working for NHS provider organisations in (i) each year since 2009-10 and (ii) 2020-21.
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups, but not staff working in primary care or in general practitioner surgeries, local authorities or other providers.
The following table shows the number of mental health nurses as at September each year since 2009 and as at February 2020, the latest available data, full time equivalent (FTE) and headcount.
| Mental health nurses, FTE | Mental health nurses, headcount |
September 2009 | 40,602 | 50,844 |
September 2010 | 40,247 | 50,028 |
September 2011 | 39,024 | 48,061 |
September 2012 | 38,135 | 46,395 |
September 2013 | 37,397 | 45,143 |
September 2014 | 36,581 | 44,073 |
September 2015 | 35,671 | 43,169 |
September 2016 | 35,488 | 42,959 |
September 2017 | 35,390 | 42,941 |
September 2018 | 35,835 | 43,539 |
September 2019 | 36,696 | 44,610 |
February 2020 | 37,388 | 45,657 |