Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made assessment of the impact of the increase in return to practice payments for nursing in general practice on the number of registered nurses working in general practice since the introduction of those payments.

The Return to Practice (RTP) programme is available for all nurses and midwives who have allowed their registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council to lapse. Since its inception in 2014, the RTP programme has been successful in supporting 9,975 nurse returners through the Higher Education Institution route.

As of November 2023, there were 1,814 more full-time equivalent general practice nurses than in September 2015, the earliest date for which comparable data can be provided.

We have reached our target of 50,000 additional nurses across the National Health Service, meaning we have delivered on our commitment six months early. There are over 357,000 nurses working across the NHS, which is over 56,000 more than September 2019.