There are just 1,186 fully qualified school nurses who are charged with supporting the needs of England's 8.4 million pupils.
The figures have led to a stark warning from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which fears that depleted school nursing services will damage attempts to tackle national priorities, such as obesity and mental and emotional health.
The latest workforce statistics come from the Health and Social Care Information Centre and are for May 2015. As well as the 1,186 fully qualified school nurses, there are another 1,867 health professionals working in school nursing roles – although this still only brings the total number of professionals to 3,053.
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