Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I am very happy to say that we of course thank very much all the staff who have been on the frontline, whether veterans or teachers, and involved in everything that kept us going throughout the pandemic. We are of course very much aware of the impact of those stresses and strains on mental health. There is additional support for mental health, and there will continue to be additional support for young people’s mental health and for adult mental health. That is one reason why I launched a call for evidence last week to inform a new 10-year cross-departmental mental health vision, and I urge everybody to input into that process before it closes on 5 July.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

11. What recent progress his Department has made on NHS (a) short-term and (b) long-term workforce planning.

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

The workforce are the heart of our NHS, and I join the Minister for Care and Mental Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), and Opposition Members in paying tribute and putting on record our thanks to those who work in the NHS. In the short term, the NHS has well-established processes to ensure that the health service has the right number of staff with the right skills, and that is alongside our investment in workforce expansion, including delivering 50,000 more nurses over the course of this Parliament. For the longer term, we have commissioned Health Education England to set out the key drivers of workforce supply and demand. It is due to report this spring. Building on that, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce framework. We will share the conclusions in due course.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The anti-immigration, “hostile environment” rhetoric and actions of this Government are having a significant impact on our NHS workforce, both by not encouraging people to come here to work in our NHS and by discouraging current staff from staying here. The Health and Social Care Committee recommended the introduction of a national policy framework on migration to support national and local workforce planning. When will the Government implement that recommendation?

[Edward Argar]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. We are clear, and always have been clear, about how much we value the huge contribution that overseas workers in our NHS make towards keeping our health service up and running, and delivering first-class care every day. There are three strands to our approach to building and increasing our workforce. The first is increasing the numbers of people training in this country and the second is increasing retention. The third focuses on the workforce who come from overseas and who are incredibly welcome here. Indeed, the number of people coming from countries outside the EU into our NHS workforce has increased.