Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to introduce national minimum staffing level guidance for NHS services.

There are no plans to introduce national minimum staffing level guidance. Staffing levels are determined locally, supported by national guidance and regulated by the Care Quality Commission.

Guidance from the National Quality Board entitled Safe, sustainable and productive staffing, from 2016, and Developing Workforce Safeguards, from 2018, are designed to ensure a consistent, scientific, and evidence-based approach to staffing levels and to improve governance and board accountability relating to staffing decisions. Both guidance documents are available, respectively, at the following two links:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/nqb-guidance.pdf

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Developing-workforce-safeguards.pdf