Nurses: Training

Mr. Lansley
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many training posts for nurses specialising in (a) inflammatory bowel disease, (b) upper gastrointestinal cancer, (c) lower gastrointestinal cancer, (d) stoma care and (e) liver disease there were in the last five years.

Ann Keen
This information is not collected centrally.

The annual national health service workforce census does not separately identify the number of post-registration training posts from the rest of the nursing workforce.

The Government have supported the development of a range of specialist roles within nursing. However it is for local NHS organisations to commission training places and to deploy specialist nurses in accordance with their local needs.