Responding to the latest NHS England monthly workforce statistics, Dame Donna Kinnair, RCN Chief Executive and General Secretary, said:
“Whilst seeing more nursing staff is welcome, no one should be mistaken – these figures aren’t a sign that Government strategy is working.
“Government ministers can’t forever rely on the goodwill of recently retired nurses who came back into service, or the goodwill of the students who disrupted their studies to help the efforts against this pandemic.
"This increase, only seen in the past year, must be seen against a backdrop of tens of thousands of nursing vacancies in the NHS. It is dwarfed by further gaps in the social care workforce which has seen nursing numbers fall by around 30% since 2012.
"They need to accept workforce planning to this point has been unfit to meet the growing health and care needs of the population.
“Government must remove the need for students to pay fees in England and provide a maintenance grant that reflects student need. The single best way to get all returning staff to stay, and attract more into our profession, is to pay them fairly for the job they do – unfair pay drives too many experienced people out of the profession.”
Ends- As of 2 July 2020, there were 14,243 people on the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) COVID-19 temporary register - https://www.nmc.org.uk/about-us/reports-and-accounts/covid19-temporary-register-analysis/
- An analysis of the NMC COVID-19 temporary register found only 50 per cent of returning professionals would consider re-joining the permanent register - https://www.nmc.org.uk/news/news-and-updates/nmc-covid19-temporary-register-analysis/
- Registered nurses were one of the only job roles in adult social care to see a significant decrease year-on-year since 2012/13 to 2019/20 (down 15,000 or 30% since 2012/13). https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data/Workforce-intelligence/publications/national-information/The-state-of-the-adult-social-care-sector-and-workforce-in-England.aspx
