More Doctors and Nurses Working in NHS

There are record numbers of doctors (over 127,700) and nurses (almost 310,100) working in the NHS for the third month running, according to the latest provisional data up to October.

Compared to October 2020, there are over 4,800 more doctors and over 10,900 more nurses working in the NHS.

There are now over 1.2 million full-time equivalent staff working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups in England – over 44,700 more people compared to a year ago.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid said:

“I’m delighted to see more people starting a career in healthcare, with thousands more doctors and nurses working in our NHS compared to last year.

“I want to thank everyone working in the NHS. Staff have worked incredibly hard throughout the pandemic and we are investing in and growing the NHS workforce, as well as doing everything we can to support their wellbeing.”

The government has provided an extra £5.4 billion to the NHS to respond to COVID-19 up to April, taking total extra COVID-19 funding to health and care services to over £34 billion this year alone.

The government recently announced that Health Education England would be merged with NHS England, ensuring long term planning and strategy for healthcare staff is at the centre of the national NHS agenda.