Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to increase the (a) recruitment to and (b) retention of healthcare professionals in the NHS in June 2023.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, the NHS People Plan and the NHS People Promise set out a comprehensive range of actions to improve staff retention. They provide a strong focus on creating a more modern, compassionate and inclusive National Health Service culture by strengthening health and wellbeing, equality and diversity, culture and leadership and flexible working. In addition, the NHS Retention Programme is continuously seeking to understand why staff leave, resulting in targeted interventions to support staff to stay whilst keeping them well.

Specifically, June 2023 saw a number of actions to improve recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals in the NHS.

NHS England held several events, including: seven regional communities of practice workshops to support recruitment and retention of early career nurses, midwives and Allied Health Professionals; an event focused on international recruits; and a series of roundtables with representatives from the 23 retention exemplar trusts, which are working to implement the People Promise. These events focused on sharing best practice on strategies to improve recruitment and retention and supporting staff in career development.

Additionally, NHS England launched the ‘Retaining doctors in late-stage career guidance’ in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/retaining-doctors-in-late-stage-career-guidance/