Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an estimate of the number of NHS (a) doctors, (b) nurses and (c) staff that left the NHS for reasons other than reaching the age of retirement in 2023.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics for England. This data is drawn from the Electronic Staff Record, and the Human Resources system for the National Health Service. Ad hoc supplementary information releases are made which include reasons for leaving, where they are known, for staff leaving the NHS by staff group. The latest data published for all staff groups is for April 2022 to March 2023, and is available at the following link:
This has been superseded for nurses and health visitors by the Nurse leavers by reason for leaving and gender, September 2022 to 2023, which is available at the following link:
People leaving active service in NHS trusts will include those moving to primary care services, in particular doctors in training grades and non-NHS providers, or those going to work permanently or temporarily in healthcare services in other areas of the United Kingdom.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to publish the results of the review by McKinsey and Co into NHS productivity.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2024 Spring Budget committed £3.4 billion of capital funding to support NHS England in driving technologically and digitally enabled productivity improvement. To prepare for this work, NHS England commissioned McKinsey and Company as part of an internal exercise. The Department will provide a public update on progress and plans for delivering the Spring Budget’s announcements.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an estimate of the cost to the public purse of awarding a pay rise to NHS junior doctors of (a) 5%, (b) 10%, (c) 15%, (d) 20%, (e) 25%, (f) 30% and (g) 35%.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much elective recovery funding each integrated care board received less penalties for missed targets (a) in absolute terms and (b) as a proportion of the elective recovery funding initially allocated to the board, in financial year 2022/23.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Each integrated care board (ICB) received their full elective recovery fund (ERF) allocation in 2022/23 and no penalties were applied for missing elective activity targets.
The initial ERF allocations for each ICB are available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/allocation-of-resources-2022-23/
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much NHS England spent on agency staff in each year since 2010.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The first full financial year for which NHS England was in existence, as the NHS Commissioning Board, was 2013/14. NHS England only holds information on agency spend in combination with other commissioning bodies, for instance integrated care boards, formerly known as clinical commissioning groups. The following table shows the total spent on agency staff in NHS England and the commissioning bodies, each year since 2013/14 to 2022/23:
Year | Spend |
2013/14 | £240,000,000 |
2014/15 | £300,000,000 |
2015/16 | £310,000,000 |
2016/17 | £270,000,000 |
2017/18 | £190,000,000 |
2018/19 | £160,000,000 |
2019/20 | £130,000,000 |
2020/21 | £160,000,000 |
2021/22 | £160,000,000 |
2022/23 | £210,000,000 |
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many trusts have agreed to join the federated data platform as of 7 March 2024.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Federated Data Platform is a vital upgrade for the National Health Service, allowing it to be much more effective in how it handles its data, to improve outcomes for patients. It will allow information about staff, waiting times, equipment and medicines to be brought together, to allow better planning of how the NHS uses its resources.
41 trusts have agreed to join the Federated Data Platform, by means of transitioning from their participation in one of the pilot programmes. In parallel, the programme is actively engaging with 29 new trusts, regarding joining the Federated Data Platform in 2024. We are working with regions and local organisations to plan their implementation timeline.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what is the (a) final outturn spend for 2022-23, (b) forecast outturn for 2023-24 and (c) planned budget for 2024-25 for the NHS England Frontline Digitisation programme budget.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The final outturn spend for 2022/23 is £472.8 million. Outturn for 2023/24 is to be confirmed once the final accounts have been approved. Final confirmation of the budgets for 2024/25 is pending, and will be confirmed imminently.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding NHS England plans to allocate to Integrated Care Boards for local GP retention schemes for 2024-25; and through what mechanism that funding will be allocated following the closure of the General Practice Fellowship and the Supporting Mentors schemes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In 2022, we saw the highest ever number of doctors accepting a place on general practice (GP) training, a record of 4,032 trainees, up from 2,671 in 2014.
From April 2024, integrated care boards (ICBs) will take on greater autonomy to make decisions that serve the best interests of local people and communities. This means that, while the General Practice Fellowship and Supporting Mentors schemes will no longer operate in their current national form, NHS England will work with ICBs to put in place support that reflects their local approaches and needs. It will be for ICBs to decide how funding operates at a local level, and the amount of funding they are able to devote to the schemes. NHS England will, however, continue to support people currently on the General Practice Fellowship throughout 2024/25, and ministers will shortly be beginning a series of roundtables with GPs on the future for GP practice, that will also consider ideas for retention and training.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to include all patient records held by GPs in the NHS federated data platform.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Federated Data Platform is a vital upgrade for the National Health Service, allowing it to be much more effective in how it handles its data. It will bring together information about staff, waiting times, equipment and medicines to improve patient outcomes.
Based on agreements between general practices' data controllers and integrated care boards, the Federated Data Platform will have the capability to include elements of local primary care data. This would be limited to the information required to support the provision of care and would only be utilised by local organisations within the local tenants of the Federated Data Platform, and not be shared beyond a local level.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the number of patients (a) waiting for mental healthcare and (b) on NHS waiting lists for physical conditions who are also waiting for mental healthcare.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
There is currently no waiting times standard covering all mental health service areas. For services where a waiting times standard does exist, the latest position over the period from November 2023 to January 2024 was published by NHS England on 14 March 2024.
Information on routine and urgent referrals to children and young people’s eating disorder services and referrals to the early Intervention in Psychosis pathway is available at the following link:
Information on referrals to NHS Talking Therapies is available at the following link:
For referrals to adult community mental health services waiting for a second contact, referrals to children and young people’s community mental health services waiting for a first contact and Accident & Emergency attendances for mental health or self-harm, information is being collected to prepare for the proposed new waiting time standards being developed as part of the Clinically-led review of National Health Service access standards but these are NOT yet associated with a target. The latest position over the period from November 2023 to January 2024 is available at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-services-monthly-statistics/performance-january-2024
Information on the number of patients on NHS waiting lists for physical conditions who are also waiting for mental healthcare is not held centrally.
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are expanding and transforming NHS mental health care so that more people can get the support that they need more quickly. Between 2018/19 and 2023/24, the NHS forecasts that spending on mental health services has increased by £4.6 billion in cash terms, compared to the target of £3.4 billion in cash terms set out at the time of the NHS Long Term Plan. All integrated boards are also on track to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard in 2023/24.