Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the announcement on 5 September 2022 that the NHS plans to add the equivalent of 7,000 additional beds this winter, (a) what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the number of (i) clinical and (ii) ancillary staff in hospitals to support those additional beds along with the usual increased winter demand and (b) whether she plans to take steps to increase the numbers of (i) clinical and (ii) ancillary staff in hospitals.

On 12 August 2022, NHS England wrote to National Health Service trusts, foundation trusts and integrated care boards (ICBs) on increasing capacity and operational resilience in urgent and emergency care for winter 2022/23. ICBs are responsible for developing plans to recruit sufficient staff. No recent assessment of the adequacy of the number of clinical or ancillary staff to support additional beds or for increased winter demand has been made.

There are now over 30,000 additional staff working in NHS provider trusts and commissioning bodies than in July 2021, including a further 3,500 doctors and 9,100 nurses. There were an additional 16,570 professionally qualified clinical staff and 5,387 support staff in June 2022 compared to June 2021.