Fantastic news released this week that the Government’s commitment to recruit an additional 50,000 nurses has been met six months early!
The NHS have published data which shows that the number of nurses increased from 300,904 in 2019 to over 352,000! This is the largest ever sustained growth in the NHS nursing workforce, with the expanded workforce delivering hundreds of thousands of extra appointments, helping to tackle waiting lists and improve access for patients.
For London, since 2019 there has been an additional 7,653 nurses brought into the health service.
Building on this, the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan’s three priorities of train, retain and reform has been backed by £2.4 billion over the last five years and is well on track to deliver more nurses then every before. These recruitment and retention measures will mean the health service will have at least an extra 170,000 more nurses in place by 2036.
