Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to address vacancy rates in the NHS cancer workforce.

Health Education England (HEE) published its Cancer Workforce Plan in December 2017. It was developed in partnership with NHS England and the Five Year Forward View partners and set out a delivery plan that ensures the National Health Service in England has the right numbers of skilled staff to provide high quality care and services to cancer patients at each stage in their care – from accurate early diagnosis and treatment to living with cancer and end of life care.

The recommendations from this plan include actions to ensure the NHS have enough staff with the right skills to deliver the funded activity set out in the Cancer Taskforce Strategy by 2021, and focuses on priority professions to do this.

HEE is currently piloting its international recruitment programme related to the Cancer Workforce Plan ambitions commencing with clinical radiologists, this will be used with the intention to recruit at least 89 diagnostic radiographers from overseas.

Over summer 2019, HEE will work with NHS England, NHS Improvement and other stakeholders, to understand the longer-term workforce implications for further development of cancer services. This will include exploring sustainable growth beyond 2021 in key professions including through continued investment in training places, a greater focus on attracting and retaining students, workforce transformation and improving the numbers of qualified professionals who go on to work in the NHS.