Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to recruit NHS cardiologists (a) nationally and (b) in regions suffering from shortages.

Decisions on recruitment and employment are a matter for individual National Health Service trusts which manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.

The new resident doctors’ deal will see significant expansion of training places by up to 4,500 over the next three years, including 1,000 next year, 250 of which will be starting in February. This expansion combined with the impact of the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act is expected to bring competition ratios down and tackle specialty bottlenecks almost immediately.

The forthcoming 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it. We are working through how the plan will articulate the changes for different professional groups.