Draft Health Education England (Transfer of Functions, Abolition and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2023

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 General Committees

[Will Quince]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need medics across the NHS in various functions: consultants, doctors, surgeons, allied health professionals, nurses, nursing associates, apprentices and so much more. That is exactly why we commissioned NHS England to undertake a long-term workforce plan. She will know that the Chancellor set out in the autumn statement, and reiterated in the recent Budget, that we will publish that plan very shortly—certainly this spring. It will also be independently verified. It will set out our plan and the workforce requirements for the next five, 10 and 15 years. It needs a bit of patience, but it is a hugely important piece of work because, as she rightly says, the NHS needs that workforce to plan for the future.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Carrying on from what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet said about the doctors and nurses of the future, one of the very successful things that this Government did five years ago was introduce 10 new medical schools. The one in Chelmsford at Anglia Ruskin University is hugely successful and the first new doctors will graduate in just a few weeks. It has some of the lowest drop-out rates anywhere in the country, and the new doctors want to stay locally. Will the Minister press the case for expanding very successful medical schools such as the one in Chelmsford?

[Will Quince]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. She is absolutely right. I was due to visit her medical school but, unfortunately, because of illness I could not. I still very much hope to do so. She is right that we need to train more medics domestically, although we have international recruitment. We increased the number of doctors we train by 1,500—a 25% increase to 7,500 per year. I urge her to wait just a little longer for the long-term workforce plan, which will set out our requirements for the future and how we go about ensuring that we fill the places and get medics in training. I am conscious that doctors are one of those groups.

Both of my right hon. Friends talked about planning, which is very much at the heart of the regulations. Their intention is to more closely align workforce planning, which is currently the statutory function of Health Education England, with the service and financial planning responsibilities of NHS England. That will enable service, workforce and finance planning to be properly integrated in one place. Nationally and regionally, it will build on the work that has been done to develop the NHS people plan. It will also help to drive reforms in education and training further and faster so that employers can recruit the health professionals needed to provide the right care to patients in the future.

Merging Health Education England with NHS England will simplify the national system, leading the NHS to end the separate lines of accountability that exist for the two bodies. Currently, Health Education England is responsible for workforce planning, education and training, but NHS England is responsible for culture, retention, international recruitment, workforce and leadership. Uniting those functions will help us ensure a joined-up and long-term view of what our NHS workforce needs for the future.

I pay tribute to Health Education England’s leadership and staff throughout the organisation’s 10-year existence. It has played a hugely effective role in the delivery of growth in the number of health professionals trained in England. It has promoted the creation of new roles, such as nursing associates, and spearheaded reforms to professional training workforce growth; record numbers now work within our NHS. It was hugely flexible and effective during the pandemic, including by supporting the deployment of students to the frontline at critical moments.

I am delighted that as of 1 April this year, Dr Navina Evans will become the chief workforce, training and education officer in the new NHS England. Sir David Behan, the chair of Health Education England, was appointed as a non-exec director of NHS England on 1 July. Those appointments are both important, because they will ensure that there continues to be excellent national leadership of NHS education and training.

I know there will be concern in some quarters that the changes pose a risk of budgets being used for other purposes. However, we have put in place a number of measures, including ministerial oversight, to ensure that that will not be the case. I am happy to elaborate on that later if required. Very briefly, we will include objectives on the workforce within NHS England as part of the NHS England mandate. We will continue to monitor and track expenditure on education and training with, as I said, a ministerial chaired board to provide that important ministerial oversight and governance of the workforce in NHS England.

Health Education England and NHS England already work closely together to ensure that the NHS has the workforce that it needs for the future. As I said in response to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet earlier, we have commissioned NHS England to develop that long-term workforce plan for the next five, 10 and 15 years’ time. In effect, that plan will look at the mix, the number of staff required, and the actions and reforms that will be necessary across our NHS to reduce supply gaps and—importantly—improve retention.