Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of Health Education England's workforce planning.

Health Education England (HEE) has made good progress in creating and implementing a national workforce planning process for the National Health Service and public health system. For the first time, there is now a publication of a national workforce plan for England setting out the investment that will be made in the education and training of the workforce. In developing the plan, HEE has worked closely with local NHS providers, commissioners and other partners to ensure that it reflects the future workforce that is needed to deliver health services.

HEE has published two workforce plans to date, in December 2013 and most recently in December 2014. The latest plan sets out the education commissions that HEE will make in 2015-16 and forms the basis for future recruitment to postgraduate medical and dental training posts and the contracts with higher education institutions who will deliver the agreed number of education places commencing in September 2015.

Copies of both documents have been attached.