Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of development and training needs in the nursing workforce.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government has commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan for the next 15 years, which will look at the mix and number of staff required and will set out the actions and reforms needed across the National Health Service, including nurses.
The Government continues to support career progression by investing in continued professional development to help clinical staff advance their careers, develop new clinical skills to enhance the care they are able to provide to patients, obtain advanced practice qualifications and move more easily between different roles in different parts of the NHS.
Programmes such as apprenticeships and blended learning offer new routes into healthcare professions, including nursing. Health Education England, now part of NHS England, recently published the Educator Workforce Strategy, setting out actions that will lead to sufficient capacity and quality of educators to allow the growth in healthcare workforce that is needed to deliver care now and in the future.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to increase the representation of (a) ethnic minority and (b) internationally educated nurses in governance structures of the (i) nursing and (ii) midwifery professions.
Answered by Will Quince
The National Health Service workforce is more diverse today than at any point in its 75-year history.
The NHS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion improvement plan, which was published on 8 June 2023, requires NHS organisations and integrated care boards to create talent management plans to improve diversity of boards and senior roles and to implement plans to widen recruitment opportunities within local communities. This should include a focus on career pathways into the NHS such as apprenticeship programmes and graduate management training schemes.
To increase the number of internationally educated nurses at higher grades, NHS England has funded 22 pilot projects as part of an Accelerated Development Programme. NHS England has also been proactive in encouraging ethnic minority nurses and midwives to apply for places on leadership development programmes.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to improve pastoral care in NHS trusts.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS England has developed a number of health and wellbeing initiatives, which include a wellbeing guardian role, a focus on healthy working environments, tools and resources for line managers to hold meaningful conversations with staff to discuss their wellbeing, and access to emotional and psychological health and wellbeing support. They are also investing in occupational health services for NHS staff.
NHS England has created a Pastoral Care Quality Award for trusts that provide a high level of pastoral care to internationally educated recruits. Trusts that have achieved the award can use a graphic on their website and in marketing materials to signal that pastoral care is a priority. As of 12 June 2023, 56 trusts have achieved the Pastoral Care Quality Award, with 20 currently going through the judging process, and a further 76 applications submitted since its launch in March 2022.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to promote the collective voice of ethnic minority senior nurses.
Answered by Will Quince
The NHS Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion improvement plan, published on 8 June 2023, states that National Health Service leaders must demonstrate their commitment to creating a fair environment for their staff.
The Chief Nursing Officer for England has also formed an Ethnic Minorities Advisory Collaborative to advise on inclusive policies and support the retention and development of senior colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds. This is formed of three independent groups which together work to promote diversity at senior levels: the Global Majority Chief Nurses’ Group, which acts as a senior ethnic minority staff advisory group to the Chief Nursing Officer; the black and minority ethnic strategic advisory group; and the Jabali Men’s Network, which aims to support the retention and development of men from African, Caribbean, and Asian backgrounds at Band 8C and above.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help newly immigrated nurses integrate into NHS workplaces.
Answered by Will Quince
All nurses new to the National Health Service will be supported with an appropriate induction programme. In addition, NHS England has funded a grant programme to support international nurses and midwives' integration into the United Kingdom and NHS. This will include hosting wellbeing and career development webinars and building digital platforms to signpost culture-specific information.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to promote NHS jobs to people living abroad.
Answered by Will Quince
The NHS England ‘We are the NHS’ campaign includes a core set of marketing materials for National Health Service trusts to use and provide a high-quality summary of the NHS offer to international nurses, maximising the NHS brand and giving practical information on how nurses can apply.
NHS England has also produced an international recruitment marketing film, as well as a video to promote and encourage international nurses specifically into NHS mental health roles.
The Health Careers website includes a webpage targeted at overseas health professionals, to ensure they can access accurate and trustworthy information about roles in the NHS.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's policy paper People at the Heart of Care: adult social care reform, published on 1 December 2021, for what reason the Disabled Facilities Grants consultations on (a) increasing the amount that a grant can pay for an individual adaptation, (b) the way that such Grant funding is allocated to local authorities, and (c) reforming the means test underpinning those Grants were not undertaken in 2022..
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The priorities for this Government are making sure that people have access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time. This has meant a need to review certain policy areas to focus on these priorities. Next Steps to put People at the Heart of Care announced a further £102 million, £50 million in 2023/24 and £52 million in 2024/25, for housing adaptation support. This is in addition to the £573 million per year which is already available for the Disabled Facilities Grant. This increase will enable local areas to fund supplementary services that are agile and help people stay independent, support hospital discharge, and make minor adaptations.
Local areas already have discretion on how they manage the grant, for example, they can increase the cap on a case-by-case basis or in line with a locally published housing assistance policy. They can also choose to waive the means test for grants costing under a certain amount. As with all aspects of the Disabled Facilities Grants, Government will continue to keep these reforms under review.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to expand the number of allied health professionals working within rheumatology teams.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The composition of rheumatology teams is for local determination. In 2021/22, the Health Education England (HEE) National AHP Workforce Supply Project (2021/22) delivered recruitment initiatives including improved return to practice pathways, pre-registration apprenticeships and more jobs for new graduates. A HEE national programme started in 2022/23 to support National Health Service trusts with allied health professionals (AHP) international recruitment.
The AHPs Strategy for England ‘AHP’s Deliver 2022-2027’ was published in June 2022, one of the key ambitions is to promote the wellbeing of AHPs. Health Education England is developing Advanced Practice Credentials for Allied Health Professionals, this supports retention of staff through increased job satisfaction and improved quality of care, by enhancing AHP clinical and leadership skills.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of bullying within the NHS workforce.
Answered by Will Quince
Bullying is unacceptable in any workplace and has no place in the National Health Service. All employers across the NHS should have a robust policy on bullying outlining how it should be handled and staff should be made aware of this. As NHS England set out in their recent Equality, Diversity and Inclusion improvement plan, bullying and harassment at work can result in increased sickness absence and employee turnover, diminished productivity, sickness presenteeism and employee relations costs. These things can all adversely impact the quality of patient care.
In addition to this, NHS England has developed a NHS Civility and Respect programme which aims to tackle bullying and harassment in the NHS and to create positive workplace cultures of civility and respect.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with primary care (a) representative groups and (b) practitioners on the role of community pharmacy in the Primary Care Access Recovery Plan.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Secretary of State meets regularly with other Cabinet colleagues and ministerial meetings with external organisations are routinely published on GOV.UK.