Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department have had with health staff trades unions in the last 12 months.

The Department’s Ministers and officials meet routinely with health staff trade unions in the national Social Partnership Forum (SPF), which is now chaired by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ben Gummer). The main SPF met four times between July 2014 and July 2015.

Officials also meet formally at least twice yearly with health trade unions in the NHS Staff Council and at least quarterly in the NHS Staff Council Executive, where NHS Agenda for Change pay negotiations take place. Officials were also observers at negotiations between NHS Employers and the British Medical Association (which ended in October 2014) on changes to the consultant contract and the contract for doctors and dentists in training.

Additionally, Ministers and officials met with health trade unions, including Unison, British Medical Association, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives, Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association and the TUC, across a range of policy issues in the past 12 months.

Although data is not routinely collated for official purposes on meetings specifically with Trade Unions, details of all Health Ministers’ external meetings have historically been published retrospectively on GOV.UK.

Details of all Ministerial meetings with external stakeholders are published quarterly in arrears on the GOV.UK website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ministerial-gifts-hospitality-overseas-travel-and-meetings