Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the reasons for the difficulties in the recruitment of health staff in rural areas, in the context of his plans for a Neighbourhood Health Service.

We have found that people tend to settle and practice in areas where they train, as identified on page 209 of the Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2021 – Health in Coastal Communities, which is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60f98750e90e0703bbd94a41/cmo-annual_report-2021-health-in-coastal-communities-accessible.pdf

A central part of the 10-Year Health Plan is our workforce and how we ensure that we train and provide the staff, technology and infrastructure the National Health Service needs to care for patients across our communities, including rural and coastal areas.