Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will require the NHS to conduct an annual audit of childcare requirements for its staff to help inform staffing rotas.

No specific assessment has been made of the potential impact of the availability and cost of childcare on National Health Service staff’s working hours or ability to work full time. We have no current plans to conduct an audit of childcare requirements to inform staffing rotas.

Decisions on how to fill staffing rotas is an operational issue that sits with employers across the NHS. There is no central collection of information on childcare provision across the NHS. There is a mixed picture on provision with some healthcare providers providing in-house nurseries and others supporting staff in other ways through subsidies or voucher schemes. The recent announcement by the Chancellor of the extension of 30 hours of free childcare to those between nine months and five years old has been received positively.

We know that the opportunity to work flexibly is important to many NHS staff and that this is central to enabling individuals to fulfil caring responsibilities, manage their work-life balance and maintain their own health and wellbeing. ‘We work flexibly’ is one element of the NHS People Promise, which the NHS is committed to delivering for staff by 2024/25, and staff have the right to request flexible working from day one without the need to provide a justification. NHS England have developed policies and principles to support the implementation of flexible working.