21 February 2003
The government has stepped up its drive to recruit more nurses, doctors and health professionals by announcing that an additional £3.4bn is to be invested in 8,000 new training places in the NHS.
Health minister John Hutton pledged that by 2008 there would be more than 35,000 extra nurses, midwives and health visitors as well as an extra 30,000 therapists and scientists working in the health service.
'Increasing the numbers of training places is crucial to helping the NHS expand the services it provides to patients,' he said.
The figure is due to rise to more than £4bn by 2006, an increase of a third on current budget levels. Most will go towards training for nurses and other health professionals, expanding the existing budget by 50%. The funds that support undergraduate medical and dental students, and specialist doctors and dentists, will increase by more than a fifth.
The Royal College of Nursing welcomed the investment, but warned that nurses would need to be paid more and have opportunities to develop their skills to prevent them leaving the profession.
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