Record number of NHS doctors and nurses in England

There are record numbers of NHS doctors and nurses working in England according to the latest statistics published today.

The government is committed to delivering 50,000 more NHS nurses by the end of this Parliament.

Minister for Care Helen Whately said:

I’m thrilled that the numbers of qualified doctors and nurses working in our NHS have reached an all-time high, with over 123,000 doctors and 301,000 nurses working in our NHS.

I am incredibly grateful for the hard work and commitment of all health and social care staff as we reach a year since the beginning of the first lockdown.

Our expanding NHS workforce will help to provide world-class care to patients and continue to deliver life-saving vaccines as we cautiously follow our roadmap back to normality.

There has also been a 34% increase in applicants to study nursing this year, with all eligible nursing, midwifery and allied-health professional students benefiting from a non-repayable grant from the government, worth at least £5,000 a year.

Today, NHS Digital has published its monthly NHS workforce data for December 2020, with provisional figures for January.

Compared with the same time last year, there are almost 6,600 more doctors and over 10,900 more nurses working in the NHS.

The numbers of doctors and nurses refer to full-time equivalent roles.

From January 2021, NHS Digital introduced a ‘provisional’ section of the monthly NHS workforce statistics publication. This contains an early view of the figures one month in advance of those throughout the rest of the release.