Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent representations he has received from NHS trusts on workforce morale.

National Health Service organisations are primarily responsible for the morale of their staff. The Department recognises variation in staff morale across different types if NHS organisation and staff groups.

The Department is taking action to help employers in their responsibility for improving morale by introducing a new pay deal for the majority of non-medical and dental NHS staff, supporting employers to reduce employee sickness absence via NHS England’s recently launched NHS staff health and wellbeing framework including quicker access to musculoskeletal and mental health services for staff who need them, encouraging better use of flexible working options to support staff at different stages of their careers through NHS Improvement’s staff retention collaborative and working in partnership with unions and employers to tackle bullying of and violence against NHS staff.