Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increasing the provision of housing for NHS staff (a) nationally and (b) in York; and if he will take steps to provide housing for NHS staff in (a) England and (b) areas with low recruitment and retention.

Local National Health Service organisations are responsible for determining the appropriate use of their NHS estate, including for key worker accommodation.

We recognise the importance of ensuring the availability of high-quality, affordable accommodation to NHS staff. We are working closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to explore how we can best support NHS trusts to deliver key worker accommodation where it is needed. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Lord Markham) will lead a joint taskforce with the Minister of State for Housing (Rachel Maclean MP) to work through the barriers identified in a recently published paper on key worker accommodation by the NHS Homes Alliance, and to support the NHS to streamline delivery.

NHS staff also have access to the national First Homes scheme, established in 2021, which enables key workers to purchase homes at a discount to the market value on new housing sites, paid for by developer contributions.