Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 14 October 2024 to Question 7208, what steps his Department has taken to help recruit 8,500 new mental health workers.

As part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, we are recruiting 8,500 mental health workers across child and adult mental health services to help ease pressure on busy services.

We continue to work with NHS England to consider options to deliver this commitment alongside publishing a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade. There are a wide range of factors that will affect this future growth of the NHS mental health workforce, and we will provide an update in due course.

In addition, targeted retention work has been undertaken through the NHS Retention Programme which works with trusts to help them understand why staff have left. This has focused on better support for line managers and improved support for new joiners.