Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve recruitment and retention to deliver her Department's integrated one workforce approach.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out how we will meet the workforce needs of the future, through increasing training numbers and reforming training, working differently, and taking action to retain more staff. The plan recommends that integrated care boards (ICBs) and wider system partners prioritise actions that drive recruitment and retention of multi-disciplinary teams, in a one workforce approach.
There are a number of key national programmes aimed at supporting regions, ICBs, and providers with recruitment challenges, in growing the workforce. For example, the Overhauling Recruitment programme aims to overhaul and modernise National Health Service recruitment by encouraging innovation and wider access into NHS careers, supporting the growth of a diverse and skilled workforce to meet future demands on healthcare. NHS England will soon be engaging with ICBs and providers to support and enable this transformational change, as it prepares to publish the overhauling recruitment strategic delivery framework.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan also sets out how to improve culture and leadership to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the NHS over the next 15 years. Key to this is the National Retention Programme. The programme builds on the NHS People Promise, and supports integrated care systems (ICSs), which are made up of ICBs and integrated care partnerships, regions, NHS trusts, and organisations, to improve employee experience and retain their people, and thereby reduce the NHS staff leaver rates.
Support for organisations and ICSs can be accessed via the Retention Hub, which outlines initiatives mapped against the People Promise, access to tools, guides, and case studies to enable improvements and contact details for regional colleagues support the retention agenda in each of the seven regions. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/looking-after-our-people/the-programme-and-resources/
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking ensure Integrated Care Schemes are able to support staff retention schemes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out how to improve culture and leadership, to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the National Health Service over the next 15 years. Key to this is the National Retention Programme. The programme builds on the NHS People Promise, and supports integrated care systems (ICSs), regions, NHS trusts, and organisations to improve employee experience to retain their people, and therefore reduce NHS staff leaver rates.
The National Retention Programme provides a suite of evidence-based, targeted, organisational-level interventions, to improve staff engagement and experience, in line with the NHS People Promise. The programme builds on the fundamentals that every organisation should be developing to support a good working environment, providing practical advice and support. It targets activities at the key career points at which staff are most likely to leave, to help improve retention.
Support for organisations and ICSs can be accessed via the Retention Hub, which outlines initiatives mapped against the NHS People Promise, access to tools, guides, and case studies, to enable improvements and contact details for regional colleagues support the retention agenda in each of the seven regions. Further information on the Retention Hub is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/looking-after-our-people/the-programme-and-resources/
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with Integrated Care Boards on recruitment and retention of health workers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out how we will meet the workforce needs of the future, through increasing training numbers and reforming training, working differently, and taking action to retain more staff.
There are a number of key national programmes aimed at supporting regions, integrated care boards (ICBs), and providers with recruitment challenges, and growing the workforce. For example, the Overhauling Recruitment programme aims to overhaul and modernise National Health Service recruitment, encouraging innovation and wider access into NHS careers, supporting the growth of a diverse and skilled workforce to meet future demands on healthcare. NHS England will soon be engaging with ICBs and providers to support and enable this transformational change, as it prepares to publish the overhauling recruitment strategic delivery framework.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan also sets out how to improve culture and leadership to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the NHS over the next 15 years. Key to this is the National Retention Programme. The programme builds on the NHS People Promise, and supports integrated care systems (ICS), which are made up of ICBs and integrated care partnerships, regions, NHS trusts, and organisations, to improve employee experience and retain their people, thereby reducing NHS staff leaver rates.
Support for organisations and ICS can be accessed via the Retention Hub, which outlines initiatives mapped against the People Promise, access to tools, guides, and case studies, to enable improvements and contact details for regional colleagues to support the retention agenda in each of the seven regions.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the staff turnover rate for his Department is as of 25 April 2024.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The departments turnover figures are only available at the end of each month. The DWP turnover rate as of 31st March 2024 is 7.3%.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the letter to his Department on Tackling the Recruitment & Retention Crisis from Leading Violence Against Women and Girls organisations, published on 20 March 2024.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Home Office officials are discussing the concerns and proposals raised in the correspondence you refer to directly with some of the signatories and have also engaged with officials at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities to ensure a co-ordinated consideration of the concerns raised.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of calls from a coalition of Violence Against Women and Girls organisations for an independent taskforce to tackle recruitment and retention in that sector.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Home Office officials are discussing the concerns and proposals raised in the correspondence you refer to directly with some of the signatories and have also engaged with officials at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities to ensure a co-ordinated consideration of the concerns raised.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and The Weald)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress she has made on retaining more GPs.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There were 2,799 more full time equivalent (FTE) doctors working in general practice (GP) in December 2023, compared to December 2019. The Government is working with NHS England to increase the GP workforce in England. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encourage them to return to practice. NHS England has made available a number of retention schemes, to boost the GP workforce.
Asked by: Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many people (a) joined and (b) left the Ministry of Defence Police in the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
MDP Officer joiners and leavers in each financial year, to 31 March, are as follows:
Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
Joiners | 275 | 404 | 322 | 248 | 253 | 125 |
Leavers | 286.5 | 266.53 | 190.79 | 311.05 | 353.98 | 308 |
MDP Non-uniformed Civil Servant joiners and leavers in each financial year, to 31 March, are as follows:
Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
Joiners | 38.9 | 40.5 | 26.5 | 39.6 | 40 | 25.2 |
Leavers | 20.5 | 26.6 | 19.4 | 44.8 | 48.8 | 38.5 |
Figures are based on Full Time Equivalents.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many staff left HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate in each year since 2015.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Data on leavers in the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and the Law Officers’ Departments (the Crown Prosecution Service, Government Legal Department, Serious Fraud Office, and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate) for the financial year 2023/24 is expected to be published at the end of July 2024.
Data on leavers in the AGO and the Law Officers’ Departments for previous years is published by the Cabinet Office in data tables which accompany the annual Civil Service statistics bulletin. These can be accessed at: Civil Service statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many staff left the Government Legal Department in each year since 2015.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Data on leavers in the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and the Law Officers’ Departments (the Crown Prosecution Service, Government Legal Department, Serious Fraud Office, and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate) for the financial year 2023/24 is expected to be published at the end of July 2024.
Data on leavers in the AGO and the Law Officers’ Departments for previous years is published by the Cabinet Office in data tables which accompany the annual Civil Service statistics bulletin. These can be accessed at: Civil Service statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).