Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the NHS developing a brain workforce as recommended by the National Neurosciences Advisory Group in the report of its June 2019 Mental Health and Neurosciences Leaders Away Day.

The Department has not made a specific assessment of the merits of developing a brain workforce. However, NHS England and NHS Improvement, working closely with partners including Health Education England and the National Neurosciences Advisory Group, are taking a range of action to strengthen the neurology workforce. This includes ongoing work to improve integration of care for neurology patients and developing, as part of the National Stroke Programme, a stroke-specific education framework to ensure a sustainable and appropriately skilled workforce.