Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 2 February (HL13305), whether they expect a significant reduction in headcount in NHS England; and when they expect to reach their target for headcount reduction from the abolition of NHS England.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government’s ambition remains to reduce staff numbers by up to 50% across the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, and the integrated care boards. These reductions will be made by March 2028. NHS England’s voluntary redundancy scheme opened on 1 December and closed for applications on Tuesday 16 December. Colleagues have now been informed whether applications to the scheme were successful, however applications can be withdrawn at any time before final agreements are signed so we cannot yet confirm final numbers. The earliest date NHS England colleagues will start to leave under the scheme is 31 March. Our ambition is to let as many people leave voluntarily as possible and alongside ongoing recruitment controls and natural staff turnover, and we believe this will allow us to make significant progress towards the 50% headcount reduction.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 2 February (HL13305), what was the headcount at integrated care boards in (1) July 2024, and (2) the most recent period for which figures are available.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England publishes monthly NHS Workforce Statistics which includes detailed statistics on staffing by individual trust and integrated care board (ICB). This publication has been used to supply a response to this question.

As of July 2024, there were 24,780 headcount staff working in ICBs across England. As of November 2025, this figure has decreased by 22 to 24,758 headcount staff working in ICBs across England. These numbers cover all staff employed directly by ICBs.

In April 2025 staff from two Commissiong Support Units, the NHS North of England Commissioning Support Unit and the NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit, transferred into the employment of their local ICBs, namely the NHS North East and Cumbria ICB and the NHS Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB respectively. The impact of these moves was a one-off increase of 450 ICB staff across the two transfers.