NHS census shows workforce boost

The release of the NHS Workforce Census 2007 has shown an increase in the number of frontline clinical staff working in health service.

Official figures demonstrate that there are 6,625 more clinical staff than a year ago, with an overall upward trend in recruitment over the last decade.

In particular, there are over 2,000 more doctors brining the total to 128,000 and over a 1,000 more nurses meaning there are now 400,000 qualified nurses in the NHS.

Health minister Ann Keen suggested that “record investment” in the health service had brought about the increased capacity.

“These extra staff are delivering big improvements for patients, with excellent progress towards a maximum wait of 18 weeks for treatment by the end of the year, falling hospital infection rates and deaths from cardiovascular disease down by 40 per cent since 1997.”

She went on to insist that the right staff were now in place to deliver “personalised services” and where there were gaps, the government were determined to recruit more healthcare workers.

Earlier this month, new figures found that the average length of hospital waiting times had increased in the last decade but decreased overall since the days of 18-month waits.