A Factcheck by The Guardian finds that the Conservatives promise in their manifesto of 50,000 new nurses in ten years time don’t add up, as follows:
- 19,000 of the nurses would actually be “retained” – i.e., ones who would otherwise have left, so not new nurses
- 12,000 to come from overseas, although the Conservatives plan to increase the charge for foreign staff to use the NHS.
- A further 14,000 would be recruited through new undergraduate students and 5,000 would be degree apprenticeships.
The factcheck notes that as the manifesto budgets only £879m for this policy, this amounts to only £17.6k a year per nurse, although the current starting salary for a nurse is £23k.
Full article from The Guardian, 25 November 2019