Nuffield Trust: How staff joined the NHS under the 50,000 nurses programme – and why they left (4 April 2026)

Summary

In 2019, the last government pledged to add 50,000 more registered nurses to the NHS in England by 2024/25 – a target that was met in 2023. But it’s been unclear how this was achieved and the lessons for policymakers from how it was done. In this long read, Lucina Rolewicz and Billy Palmer highlight the key findings from an NIHR-funded evaluation of the N50k programme, and – ahead of a new workforce plan for the NHS – emphasise the importance of learning the lessons from previous efforts to drive up the numbers of nurses in the health service.

Content

Key insights

• Many nurses move between the NHS and the private sector.
• Sickness absence is a significant predictor of nurses leaving their role.
• Nurses at the top of some pay bands are more likely to leave.
• The nursing workforce became less experienced based on time worked within a given pay band.
• Nurses from outside the UK or Europe are increasingly leaving the NHS.
• Some settings and areas have disproportionately failed to benefit from the increase in nurses.