Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many mental health workers were employed by the NHS in (a) January and (b) June 2023.

Every quarter, NHS England publish data on the National Health Service Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) mental health workforce. The data shows that as of March 2023 (the latest data), there were 142,754 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in the mental health workforce working in the HCHS setting. In December 2022, there were 138,610 FTE staff in the mental health workforce

The definition of the HCHS mental health workforce includes those who are providing or supporting the provision of mental health services. Staff are included if they have either an NHS Occupation Code or Area of Work that is related to mental health services.