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 (a) reduce shortages in the NHS workforce and (b) improve the capacity of NHS services.

We continue to grow the National Health Service workforce. As of December, there were over 4,900 (3.8%) more doctors and almost 11,100 (3.6%) more nurses than the same time last year. We are on track to deliver 50,000 more nurses across the NHS by 2024 and have over 38,000 more nurses in December 2022 compared with September 2019. The Government has funded 1,500 more medical school places each year for domestic students in England, a 25% increase, taking the total number to 7,500 each year.

We are also expanding routes into professional roles in the NHS, particularly apprenticeships. Apprenticeships allow people to earn as they learn, benefiting those for whom a full-time university course is not practical or preferred. There were around 20,900 new NHS apprenticeships starts in 2021/22, making NHS the largest employer of apprentices in the public sector by number of starts. There has also been funding confirmed as part of a pilot scheme for up to 200 Medical Doctor Degree Apprentices.

All eligible nursing, midwifery and allied health profession degree students have received a non-repayable training grant of a minimum of £5,000 per academic year. Additional funding is also available for studying certain courses for example, Mental Health Nursing and Learning Disabilities Nursing with further financial support available to students for childcare, dual accommodation costs and travel.

We have commissioned NHS England to develop a long term workforce plan for the NHS workforce for the next 15 years. This Plan is due to be published shortly.

To boost capacity, on 30 January we published the delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services and committed to increase capacity, including with 5,000 new beds as part of the permanent bed base for next winter. This is backed by £1 billion of dedicated funding, building on the £500 million used over this winter to support local areas to increase their overall capacity and support their staff.