He states there are 6,200 more nurses on our wards
as the debate goes on it is reduced to 6000 more nurses
and then finally we have 4000 new nurses
So there we have it 2,200 nurses made redundant in the space of an hour.
Joking aside, there is much debate about the number of nurses and the politicians, press and so called 'health' journalists jump on them in order to spin these statistics into whatever shape suits their agenda. So what is the true number of nurses? its not an easy question to answer due to the way these statistics are collected and formulated.
To understand why its so difficult is down to a couple of things 1) the system the NHS use to collate these figures 2) the quality of data held within the system.
Lets look at the first point. This NHS workforce statistics come from a NHS HR system called the ESR which stands for Electronic Staff Record, as previously blogged here , the ESR system does not link NHS staff pay bands with their occupation code, what this mean is that the only way to check the grade to see if that member of staff is a qualified nurse is for it to be done manually.
Now for point 2 - the quality of the data - the data in the system will include non-qualified staff and is open to abuse as HR can 'up' their nursing figures by including unqualified nurses, so HSCIC statistical header "qualified" nurses is a misnomer. To be fair to HSCIC they do have caveats to the figures produced and have issued guidance that these figures are 'estimates' - something our politicians and press appear to ignore as they present them as fact!
So we are using stats that really should be taken with a huge pinch of salt and to be honest I don't think we will get a handle on these stats any time soon. I have had some interesting email exchanges with HSCIC in order to get some background information on the stats as its naive to believe everything you read is true; now call me a cynic but where the Tories are involved I always suspect foul play - so delving a little further I asked HSCIC if there had been a change in the way the NHS workforce statistics are collected since 2010 and lo and behold there was:
So the figures prior to 2010, under a Labour government, were collected manually and therefore grades could be checked and proper statistics given, however under the Tories we have it all coming from a system that is not fit for statistical purposes, not manually checked for quality assurance and open to abuse.
So next time you hear a politician or journalist quote nursing statistics - send them my way :)
The big question here is what is the NHS England workforce? Does HSCIC statistics give the right type of information needed to manage and plan the workforce?
Compare HSCIC statistics to NHS Scotland's statistical information (sorry to rub salt in the wounds); I can break NHS workforce statistics down to nursing grades:
by age:
and even by gender/contract type
and also by region/health board and trends - but I won't bore you with that. However you can see my point, HSCIC statistics just doesn't cut it. How NHS England, The NMC and the DH can know what is happening with nursing in England is beyond me, they simply do not have the tools to manage that aspect or any other aspect of the NHS workforce.
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