Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government when the next iteration of the NHS People Plan will be published; and what assessment they have made of the recommendations by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine RCEM Cares Retention of A&E staff: policy brief, published in February, (1) to recruit an additional 2500 Emergency Medicine Consultants, and (2) to increase the numbers entering Emergency Medicine training by 120 per year, to ensure services are sustainable long term; and what steps they intend to take in response.

The NHS People Plan is a shared programme of work to increase the workforce, support new ways of working and develop a compassionate and inclusive workplace culture in order to deliver the NHS Long Term Plan. We are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Health Education England (HEE) and with systems and employers to determine our workforce and people priorities beyond April 2021 to support the recovery of National Health Service staff and services.

HEE has also worked proactively with system partners to address service pressures in emergency department teams. We have almost doubled the number of core trainees and consultants in emergency medicine since 2010. HEE will continue to work with service providers, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and NHS England to understand and discuss the recommendations in this latest Royal College of Emergency Medicine briefing.