Mental Health Services: Staff

(asked on 2nd November 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure that there are an adequate number of mental health specialists within the NHS to meet the needs of patients.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 7th November 2022

The NHS Long Term Plan stated the aim of increasing the mental health workforce in England by an additional 27,000 professionals by 2023/24. NHS England and Health Education England are working with local integrated care systems to confirm plans for service models, supply, retention and recruitment until 2024.

NHS England continues to support local systems to develop tailored health and wellbeing offers to meet the needs of the local mental health workforce. This includes mental health hubs in each integrated care system and occupational health services which are being supported through the Growing Occupational Health and Wellbeing national programme.

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.

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