Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason his Department took more than five months to reply to correspondence from the hon. Member for Reigate sent on 5 December 2021 on behalf of a constituent regarding student nurse placement hours.

In 2021, the Department received over 43,500 items of correspondence – an increase of almost four times compared to 2019. While we endeavour to reply to cases within 20 working days, the increased volumes of correspondence have led to backlog of cases, which officials are addressing as quickly as possible. We are committed to restoring our response times for correspondence to pre-pandemic levels.