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 with blood cancer (a) charities, (b) academic institutions and (c) professional bodies to improve recruitment and retention in the blood cancer workforce.

Decisions about recruitment are matters for individual National Health Service trusts. NHS trusts manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.

The Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, to ensure that we retain more of our skilled and dedicated staff. NHS England is leading work nationally through its retention programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.

NHS England is working with partners, including the Royal College of Pathologists, Cancer Alliances, and genomics programme leads, to strengthen diagnostic workforce capacity across cancer services, including pathology and cancer genomics. This includes investing in new training pathways, digital pathology, and genomics education.