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 ensure NHS workforce planning in England is (a) independent and (b) regular.

We have committed to publishing regular workforce planning. This will start with the 10 Year Workforce Plan, which will include updated workforce modelling and its underlying assumptions when published in spring 2026. The updated workforce modelling will be supported by independent external scrutiny to assess and test it.