To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of (a) doctor and (b) nurse retention rates in the NHS in each of the last three years.
Answered on
31 January 2022
NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics, including information on staff turnover. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but not staff working in primary care, local authorities or other providers.
The following table shows the annual number of HCHS doctors, excluding doctors in training, who have left the National Health Service staff group, the leaver rate, and the stability index as at September in each year from 2018. The Stability Index is the percentage of staff at the start of the period that do not leave the specified group. Leavers are based on headcount and show people leaving active service, such as parental leave or a career break.
Leavers | Leaver Rate | Stability Index | |
September 2018 to September 2019 | 4,340 | 6.7% | 93.1% |
September 2019 to September 2020 | 4,190 | 6.3% | 93.6% |
September 2020 to September 2021 | 4,350 | 6.3% | 93.6% |
Source: NHS Digital Workforce Statistics
The following table shows the annual number of nurses who have left the NHS staff group, the leaver rate and the stability index as at September in each year from 2018.
Leavers | Leaver Rate | Stability Index | |
September 2018 to September 2019 | 31,628 | 10.1% | 89.8% |
September 2019 to September 2020 | 29,201 | 9.0% | 90.8% |
September 2020 to September 2021 | 33,354 | 9.9% | 89.9% |
Source: NHS Digital Workforce Statistics