Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the impact of the 132,000 full-time equivalent staff vacancies on staff morale and burnout in the NHS.

We aim to deliver an additional 50,000 nurses by the end of March 2024, with over 29,000 more nurses currently working in the National Health Service compared with September 2019. We have also funded an additional 1,500 undergraduate medical school places each year for domestic students in England and delivered five new medical schools. The Department has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan. The plan will consider the number of staff and the roles required and will set out the actions and reforms needed to improve workforce supply and retention.

The national health and wellbeing offer continues to be available to all NHS staff, which includes a confidential text support service, free access to a range of wellbeing apps and support for line managers in having safe and effective wellbeing conversations. In 2022/23, we have invested more than £45 million to support the continuation the health and wellbeing support offer. This includes 40 mental health hubs providing outreach and assessment services for frontline staff, Professional Nurse Advocates and expanding the NHS Practitioner Health service. The NHS Retention Programme aims to understand why staff are leaving, resulting in targeted interventions to support staff to stay whilst keeping them well.