A health minister met with Robin Walker MP to celebrate the government hitting its target of recruiting an extra 50,000 nurses ahead of deadline.

On Thursday, November 30, Andrew Stephenson MP, minister of state for health, visited Worcester and met with its MP and Marc Bayliss, the Conservative Party's parliamentary candidate for the constituency when Mr Walker steps down at the next general election.

The visit came as part of a trip to the city's Three Counties Medical School at the University of Worcester.

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Data recently published by NHS England reveals that the nursing workforce has seen an addition of 51,245 nurses in September 2023 in comparison to 2019.

This increase takes the total number of nurses from 300,904 in 2019 to over 352,000, meeting the government's target six months in advance of its original deadline, which it committed to in its 2019 general election manifesto.

The Conservatives claim that the rise is the largest sustained expansion of the NHS nursing workforce in its history, and has leading to hundreds of thousands of extra appointments and thus helping manage waiting lists and improve patient access.

Mr Bayliss said: "It was great to be able to welcome the minister to Worcester on the very day that the government delivered on one of its most important manifesto commitments.

"Our NHS is so vital to our society and delivering the biggest boost in nursing numbers will make a big impact on our mission to get waiting times down and deliver the high-quality care patients rightly expect."

The Worcester candidate also thanked Mr Stephenson for the additional £25m investment in the emergency department at the Worcestershire Royal.

He also made a case for future support to enhance the accessibility to NHS dentistry in the city.