Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his contribution of 1 December 2014, Official Report, column 61, on NHS (Five Year Forward View), what the cost is of funding the 20,000 posts; and from what budgets they will be funded.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health used the number of 20,000 extra staff as an estimate of the number of posts, across all parts of the National Health Service clinical workforce, which could be filled following the announcement of £1.5 billion for the NHS frontline in 2015-16, as a way of putting the Chancellor’s pledge into context.

This £1.5 billion is part of a £2.5 billion funding package for the NHS in 2015-16 based on the government's long term economic plan.