Asked by: Gen Kitchen (Labour - Wellingborough)
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 to support the recruitment and retention of midwives in Wellingborough constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are investing an additional £186 million a year to improve maternity and neonatal care and grow the workforce. On top of this, the Government and NHS England are investing nearly £35 million over three years, from 2024/25 to 2026/27, to further improve maternity safety across England, with specialist training for staff, additional numbers of midwives, and support to ensure maternity services listen to, and act on, women’s experiences to improve care. As announced at the Spring Budget, we are further increasing the number of midwives by funding an additional 160 new posts over three years, to support the continued growth of the maternity and neonatal workforce.
On retention, 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. This includes: implementing actions from the NHS People Plan that have been shown to be successful; implementing plans to improve flexible opportunities for prospective retirees, and delivering the actions needed to modernise the NHS pension scheme; and committing to ongoing national funding for continuing professional development for nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals, so NHS staff are supported to meet their full potential. These measures apply across the country, including for midwives in the Wellingborough constituency.
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, how many training places for district nurses her Department plans to make available in September 2025.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce, published on 30 June 2023, sets out an ambition to increase the number of district nursing training places to 842 in 2025.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions she has had with the General Medical Council on (a) regulating (i) physician and (ii) anaesthesia associates and (b) ensuring that increased use of these roles in hospitals does not impact (A) the professional competence of other healthcare professionals and (B) patient safety.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has been working closely with the General Medical Council (GMC) since 2019, on the regulation of Anaesthesia Associates (AAs) and Physician Associates (PAs). Regulation with the GMC will provide set standards of practice, education, and training for AAs and PAs, as well as requirements around continual professional development (CPD) and conduct. Regulation with the GMC will mean that individual AAs and PAs can be held to account if serious concerns are raised.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan commits to growing these roles alongside recruiting and training more doctors, nurses, and allied health and other professionals. NHS England is working with partners, including the GMC, royal colleges, trade unions, doctors, and medical associate professional groups to develop comprehensive curricula, core capability frameworks, standards for CPD, assessment and appraisal, and supervision guidance for AAs and PAs, ensuring the roles are expanded safely and effectively.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has plans to upskill non-clinical eye health staff as part of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The department has an existing programme addressing the upskilling of this workforce. Ophthalmic Practitioner Training is a training programme for hospital-based ophthalmic nurses, optometrists, and orthoptists who wish to develop skills in one or more of four sub-specialty areas: medical retina; glaucoma; cataract; and emergency ophthalmology. The programme is a collaboration between the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, the Royal College of Nursing, the College of Optometrists, and the British and Irish Orthoptic Society. It offers a standardised and supportive platform for these healthcare professionals to learn new clinical skills, for the benefit of their patients. The programme trains postgraduate orthoptists, optometrists, ophthalmic nurses, and other eye care practitioners in secondary care, to develop their skills in eye care.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS Trusts employ people with responsibility for equality and diversity at director level.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold this information centrally. It is the responsibility of National Health Service organisations to determine the number of equality, diversity and inclusion roles based on need.
Equality, diversity, and inclusion roles support local NHS organisations in meeting the legal requirements set out for public bodies such as the NHS in the Equality Act 2010, and our public sector equality duty. These cover not just race, ethnicity, or nationality, but also, disability, sexual orientation, gender, faith, and other protected characteristics.
They promote the fair treatment of staff by ensuring there is a particular focus on tackling the discrimination that some staff face in the workplace. They also support retention and attraction of staff, with the aim of making the NHS the best place to work. In addition, these roles work to extend careers by creating inclusive workplaces, safeguarding investment made in training and educating doctors and nurses.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 assess the adequacy of staffing levels in public health.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In October 2022, Health Education England carried out the fifth national census to capture the size and composition of the public health workforce in England. The scope of the 2022 census was expanded to include additional roles beyond specialists, including public health practitioners, advanced practitioners, specialist community public health nurses, including school nurses and health visitors, and public health apprentices. NHS England plans to conduct the next capacity review of the public health workforce in 2025, and will work with the Department to define the scope of the review.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, published on 30 June 2023, sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver a health workforce that meets the needs of the population. This includes a commitment to provide 13% more public health specialist training places from 2023/24, and for the NHS to work with the Department to address demand and supply of the public health workforce in future years.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to work with universities to help train (a) doctors, (b) nurses and (c) teachers.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is working closely with Higher Education Providers (HEP’s) to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to access a world class education. This remains a top priority and is fundamental to the government’s ambition to level-up skills, growth, and economic opportunity across the country.
Record numbers of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare staff will be trained in England as part of the first ever NHS Long Term Workforce Plan (LTWP), which was published in June 2023. By significantly expanding domestic education, training and recruitment, we will have more healthcare professionals working in the NHS. The LTWP will:
The government is backing the LTWP with over £2.4 billion over the next five years to fund additional education and training places. This is on top of increases to education and training investment, reaching a record £6.1 billion over the next two years. The department is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, the Office for Students, as well as the General Medical Council to actualise the delivery of the plan.
The department will continue to work with the sector so everyone who wants to pursue a rewarding healthcare career has the support and opportunities to do so.
There are record numbers of teachers in England’s schools, with more than 468,000 working in state-funded schools across the country, which is 27,000 (6%) more than in 2010. The department works closely with schools and universities to recruit the best teachers, in the subjects and areas they are needed most. The department has already put in place a range of measures for trainees in the 2023/24 academic, including bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000, to encourage talented trainees to apply to train in key subjects such as chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics.
The department is also offering a levelling up premium worth up to £3,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department is doubling the rates of the levelling up premium to up to £6,000 after tax. This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.
The department is also working with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) and an employer-led trailblazer group to develop the Teacher Degree Apprenticeship (TDA). The TDA will be a new route into the teaching profession, for both primary and secondary teachers, through which successful candidates will ‘earn while they learn’ and attain an undergraduate degree and qualified teacher status while working in a school. Subject to IfATE approvals, the TDA standard will be published in spring 2024, with the candidate recruitment commencing from autumn 2024 and training commencing in autumn 2025.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many training places for nursing students there were in England in the 2023-24 financial year; and how many places there will be in the (a) 2024-25 and (b) 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since 2017, universities have set the number of available nursing training places based on market demand. The Department does not set figures for the number of places. Data published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service shows that the number of accepted applicants to undergraduate nursing courses in England for 2023 was 20,790.
The NHS Long term Workforce Plan published in June 2023 outlines the nursing training intakes which underpin the plans ambitions across academic rather than financial years, and NHS England will work with the university sector to help achieve this. Across all nursing training intakes, including undergraduate, postgraduate and apprenticeships, these are 32,124 in 2025 academic year, and 33,981 in 2026 academic year.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of understaffing in maternity units on levels of bullying, as highlighted in the #Saynotobullyinginmidwifery report published on 12 November 2023.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service takes bullying and harassment very seriously. All employers across the NHS should have a robust policy on bullying, outlining how it should be handled, and the support available to staff.
In June 2023, NHS England published their Equality Diversity and Inclusion Improvement Plan which set out a series of high impact actions, including the requirement for NHS organisations to review data by protected characteristics on bullying, harassment, discrimination, and violence, and to develop plans to improve staff experience. This includes promoting environments where staff feel they are able to speak up and raise concerns. NHS England has also developed an NHS Civility and Respect programme to tackle bullying and harassment in the NHS, and to create a culture of civility and respect.
Since 2021, the Government has invested an additional £165 million a year to improve maternity and neonatal care, which will rise to an additional £186 million a year from 2024/25, with part year effect in 2023/24. This will improve the quality of care for mothers and babies and increase the number of midwifery posts available.
NHS England has established a nursing and midwifery retention programme, supporting organisations to assess themselves against a bundle of interventions aligned to the People Promise, and to use the outcome of this to develop a high-quality retention improvement plan locally.
A key part of our strategy is the Perinatal Culture and Leadership Programme to support perinatal leadership teams to develop the conditions for a positive culture of safety and continuous improvement. It aims to improve the quality of care by enabling leaders to drive change with a better understanding of the relationship between leadership, safety improvement, and safety culture.
£2.8 million has been invested into the Perinatal Culture and Leadership Development Programme, which will support multi-professional teams from across maternity and neonatal services, to take time out together. It will create space for team and individual reflection and re-design, with a common purpose.
In January 2021, a new £500,000 fund for Maternity Leadership Training was announced for NHS maternity and neonatal leaders. The training aims to equip leaders with a range of skills and knowledge to address poor workplace culture and facilitate collaborative working between nurses, doctors, midwives and obstetricians.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the (a) total and (b) annual cost of increasing dental undergraduate training places in England by 40% by 2031-32.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, the Government committed to expanding dentist training places so that there are 1,000 places by 2028/29. No specific estimate is available for the increase in dental undergraduate costs, but along with the other commitments to increase training places for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare roles, it is estimated that this will cost an additional £2.4 billion cumulatively, on top of current education and training budgets. This will support a 27% expansion in training places by 2028/29.