NHS Long-term Workforce Plan

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

Those are both fair points. I know that my hon. Friend comes at this with great commercial experience, and I hope he knows that I have an interest in those issues. Just to reassure him, the plan is iterative; it is not a one-off. It is a framework from which we will do further work. Indeed, one of the areas that I am often criticised for is my interest in data and variation in data across the NHS—he and I probably agree on that more than some of those who are critical. That speaks to his point—the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee’s point relates to this—that in a system the size of the NHS, data on the performance of the integrated care boards and their role in terms of the workforce is one area that the House will want to return to.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

We know a Government are out of ideas when they copy the Opposition’s plan to train the doctors and nurses that the NHS so desperately needs. The majority of those policies will not be implemented until after the general election—long after the British public have booted the Conservatives out of power because of their industrial-scale incompetence, which included crashing the economy.

The Secretary of State will be aware that the NHS is short of more than 150,000 staff right now. Will he take responsibility for those shortages and admit that, had the Government acted more than a decade ago, the NHS would have the staff that it needs right now?