Indicators

Number of NHS nurses, allied health professionals and psychiatrists in post

This chart shows how the number of psychiatrists, NHS mental health nurses, applied psychologists and psychological therapists has changed since 2016, at provider level, regionally and nationally.

Exploring the data: To explore the data by region or provider, click on the tab then click in the box to compare data sets.

Policy context

The Government’s mental health workforce plan, produced by Health Education England, set out its ambitions to expand the mental health workforce from the baseline year of 2016 onwards.

By 2020/21, this called for:

8,100 additional nurses
570 additional consultant psychiatrists
4,200 additional allied health professional and scientific therapeutic and technical staff.

Subsequently the NHS England Mental Health Implementation Plan for the Long Term Plan outlined further workforce ambitions on top of the previous numbers.

By 2023/24 this called for:

4,220 additional nurses
470 additional consultant psychiatrists
5,610 psychotherapists and psychological professions
2,520 psychologists

These data provide a useful marker of capacity in the system to deliver the ambitions set out in the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health and the Long-Term NHS Plan.

Note: The figures show the headcount of full time equivalent staff working in NHS trusts. Numbers of psychiatrists refers to FTE across all grades. Numbers of nurses refer to FTE community mental health and other mental health nurses across all grades. Applied psychology and psychological therapy refers to FTE for those two roles across all grades.