Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure adequacy funding for the final stage of construction of the West Cumberland Hospital.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The West, North and East Cumbria Sustainability and Transformation Project has made an application for funding for the West Cumberland scheme from the additional £325 million capital funding announced in the spring budget earlier this year. An announcement on the successful applications will be made shortly.
Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what support his Department gives to NHS trusts and hospitals to improve the recruitment and retention of (a) maternity unit, (b) paediatric unit and (c) other hospital staff.
Answered by Philip Dunne
National Health Service trusts are responsible for the recruitment and retention of their workforce to ensure safe staffing levels. There are no specific, separate programmes for maternity and paediatric units. The Department commissions Health Education England (HEE) to work with the NHS to ensure there is sufficient future supply of staff to meet the workforce requirements of the NHS in England. Details are in its Workforce Plan for England 2016-171.
The NHS is employing more clinical staff than ever before with, for example, 307,491 nurses, midwives and health visitors (up by more than 7,000 since 2010) and HEE has over 52,000 nurses in training with forecasts for more than 40,000 additional nurses by 2020. It will be for NHS trusts to work with HEE, nurses and other clinical staff to decide how their careers develop. This could include specialising in maternity, paediatrics or other hospital services.
The number of nurses providing “early life” care which includes maternity and paediatric services is 24,446 full time equivalents (March 2017), a rise of 3,250 (15.3%) since 2010.
The Department commissions NHS Improvement to lead the national programme to develop and deliver NHS safe staffing improvement resources for specific care settings which would include maternity, paediatric and other hospital services. NHS Improvement is working with trusts to support the development of trust improvement plans for retaining their clinical workforce through, for example, ensuring trusts demonstrate leadership and culture support, and nurture staff in an environment of continuous learning for the benefit of patients.
The Department is also leading work with NHS England, HEE and others to do more to retain clinical staff through, for example, working with the NHS to improve opportunities for flexible working. The Department is also working with the Care Quality Commission to see how staff welfare issues can be included in hospital inspections so progress can be tracked.
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