Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many radiographer vacancies there are in (a) Oxfordshire and (b) England as of 2 September 2022; what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of these vacancies on health services; and what steps his Department is taking to help (i) recruit and (ii) retain radiographers in the NHS.

The information requested on the number of radiographer vacancies is not held centrally.

Health Education England (HEE) is working with NHS England on the recovery and renewal of diagnostics services, including the development of community diagnostic centres and staffing models. This includes new roles and routes into areas such as imaging and is led by a joint HEE and NHS England diagnostic workforce board.

HEE has expanded clinical radiology training placements by 110 in 2020 and 2021, with a total of 333 entry places in 2021. This also allowed an increase in posts in interventional radiology by 20. The enhancement of skills within radiography image interpretation and reporting has seen the development of 150 reporting radiographers annually since 2018.

The NHS People Plan focuses on improving the retention of National Health Service staff through staff health and wellbeing, more support for flexible working and a commitment to tackling inequality. In addition, the NHS Retention Programme aims to understand why staff leave, resulting in targeted interventions to support staff to stay.