Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 25 April 2023 to Question 180601 on Orthopaedics: Health Professions, what plans she has to (a) support NHS staff retention and (b) ensure vacancies are filled in (i) trauma and orthopaedics and (ii) rheumatology.

The Long Term Workforce Plan (LTWP) sets out how we will meet the workforce challenges of the future. This includes a plan to improve retention and ensure up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the National Health Service by improving culture, leadership and wellbeing. We will build on what we know works, for example ensuring staff can work flexibly, have access to wellbeing support, and work in well-led teams. This will apply to all NHS staff, including those working in trauma, orthopaedics and rheumatology.

There are currently record numbers of staff working in the NHS and we are backing the LTWP by investing over £2.4 billion to deliver more doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. This includes doubling the number of medical school training places and increasing adult nursing training places by 92%. The LTWP commits to ensuring that growth in specialty training will be commensurate with the growth in undergraduate medical training to ensure the NHS workforce is able to meet the changing needs of the population in the next 15 years, which will include trauma, orthopaedics and rheumatology.