Richard Holden MP welcomed the publication of statistics from the Department of Health showing that between March 2019 and March 2020 there was an increase in 444 to 6,348 in the number of doctors in the North East - the second highest rise in the country - and an increase of 702 nurses to 19,077 - the fourth highest rise in the country. These figures are from before the thousands of former healthcare professions came back to help deal with Coronavirus.
At the General Election, Richard committed to increasing the number of nurses in the NHS by 50,000 nationwide. Today's figures show that there are 12,000 more nurses across England than the same time last year.
The increase in the number of doctors working in our NHS by 6,600 and the total staff rises for our NHS of 48,000 - covering all professions - shows a really strong move in the right direction.
Richard Holden said:
"As the Coronavirus Pandemic has made clear, our NHS is nothing without it's incredible NHS staff. In January, I voted in Parliament for the NHS Funding Bill, which guarantees the largest every increases in the NHS budget, a real terms rise of over £20bn a year by 2024. This increase in both doctors and nurses across the North East and indeed the whole NHS in England is really welcome."
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