Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the number of (a) social workers and (b) psychologists employed in kidney units.
We recognise the importance of social workers as a core professional group in adult and children’s social care and are committed to funding social work education, training, recruitment and retention, ensuring we have enough social workers with the right skills, knowledge and values to support workforce requirements across the range of setting these staff may work in. We continue to provide financial support to students to qualify as social workers, through the £58.5 million Social Work Bursary and £20 million Education Support Grant to deliver practice placements each year.
In line with the NHS Long Term Plan, Health Education England is intending to expand the number of clinical psychology training places by at least 25%, which will in turn, increase the pool of clinical psychologists that could be drawn into specialisms such as kidney units.