Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I have listened to what has been said by all these expert professionals and I am very much persuaded in favour of something along the lines of this amendment. I think that one of the most worrying things from the public viewpoint has been the sheer number of concerns about nursing that we have had in the press—not least, I may say, about the mortality rates et cetera going up during weekend staffing. Quite clearly there is a need for better reorganisation. I go back quite a long way, to the time when I sat on the Briggs committee on the future of the nursing profession, and will never forget one of the nurses saying to me at the time: ““I’ve been nursing for””—however long it was; she had just got her qualification—““and now I’m going to have a rest””, which was roughly what she was up to. I had a great deal of sympathy with her from that viewpoint. I hope the Minister will bear in mind—I am sure that he must be more than aware of it—that the number of cuts in nursing staff are considerable in the present plan. Something like 8.3 per cent of qualified nursing jobs are to be lost. As the Royal College of Nursing pointed out in its briefing, that is on top of something that was done no less than about 18 months ago and is more than 10 times the original figure. Axing up to a quarter or a third of nursing posts will undoubtedly have a deep and potentially dangerous impact on patient care. Of course the training of the nurses—the experts in the really expert places—is essential. The training and up-skilling of those nurses on the real needs of patients is vitally important, but so are the numbers.