Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the NHS has a fully costed workforce plan to meet projected future population demands.

We are committed to deliver 50,000 more nurses and put the National Health Service on to a sustainable long-term supply in future. We have set up a comprehensive work programme to improve retention and support return to practice, invest in and diversify our training pipeline and recruit ethically internationally. We also increased the number of student medical places by 1,500, or 25%, and opened five new medical schools across England. This was completed in September 2020.

The Department is working with Health Education England (HEE) and NHS England and NHS Improvement to ensure that the right staff are available with the right specialisms, to support plans for elective recovery. In July 2021, the Department commissioned HEE to work with partners to review long term strategic trends for the health and regulated social care workforce. This will look at workforce demand and supply and the potential impacts to develop a shared set of planning assumptions.