Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with NHS trusts on their recruitment plans for filling vacant posts.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health meets with National Health Service partners on a regular basis to discuss a range of issues, including ensuring that trusts have enough doctors and nurses to ensure they can deliver safe, high quality care.

On 25 August 2016, NHS Digital published the NHS Vacancy Statistics for England, which shows number of full time equivalent advertised vacancies placed on NHS Jobs, the online recruitment service for the NHS. The publication showed that at 31 March 2016 the total number of full time equivalent advertised vacancies was 26,424. It is important to note that an advert might cover multiple vacancies or an ongoing recruitment programme and adverts can also be placed by NHS sub-contractors and local authorities so not all adverts will be for jobs in the NHS. Therefore, the data should be seen as a proxy as it only shows the minimum number of vacancies advertised.

The latest workforce data published by NHS Digital on 20 December 2016 showed that as at September 2016 there are 561,839 professionally qualified clinical staff working in the NHS, an increase of over 29,300 (5.5%) since May 2010.

The Department set up Health Education England (HEE) to deliver a better health and care workforce for England. HEE is responsible for ensuring that there is a secure workforce supply for the future by balancing need against demand and taking into account factors such as the age profile of the existing workforce, the impact of technology and new drugs.