Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve retention rates among NHS nurses and support staff.

Healthcare providers are responsible for ensuring that they have the right level of staffing to provide high quality care. Health Education England will work with Local Education and Training Boards and others to ensure that there are sufficient nurses and other staff being trained to meet the needs of patients.

In addition to this, as part of the Spending Review the Department will look at all of its expenditure including how we may further increase retention in the healthcare workforce. In doing so we will look to learn from other sectors, where retention schemes have been developed to ensure a return on tax-payer investment.