Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to support the NHS by (1) outsourcing the recruitment of nurses and doctors to medical institutions in India, and (2) increased investment in private diagnostic centres and clinics; and what assessment they have made of whether their current policies would be in line with such approaches.

There are no plans to outsource the recruitment of nurses and doctors to medical institutions in India. The National Health Service recruits a significant number of nurses from India and we have recently updated the code of practice for the international recruitment of health and social care personnel in England to ensure recruitment is conducted ethically. Decisions on investment in private sector healthcare capacity, including diagnostics, are made by individual NHS organisations.