Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will incentivise newly qualified healthcare workers in (a) primary and (b) secondary care to fill vacancies in areas with high levels of unmet health needs.

Decisions about the employment of newly qualified healthcare workers are a matter 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.

We will publish a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade, and treat patients on time again.