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 adequacy of the speciality staff workforce in the NHS; and what steps he is taking to ensure that vacancies in that workforce are filled as quickly as possible.

Locally, responsibility for assessing and managing staffing levels, including specialty staff, rests with individual National Health Service trusts and their boards who are best placed to decide how many staff they need to provide a given service.

‘Facing the Facts – Shaping the Future – a draft health and care workforce strategy for England to 2027’, sets out actions being taken to ensure sufficient supply of staff across all grades and specialties, including an expansion of undergraduate medical school places and expansions of available nursing and midwifery training places.

In addition, NHS Improvement has launched a programme to improve staff retention in trusts across England and bring down the leaver rates in the NHS by 2020.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care also announced measures to support staff recruitment and retention, including arrangements to support flexible working to help staff to balance work-life commitments and a 'Homes for Nurses' scheme — which will give 3,000 NHS workers first refusal on affordable housing generated through the sale of surplus NHS land.