Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his strategy for NHS workforce planning, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of shortages in the number of clinicians specialising in neurology on the adequacy of care for patients with (a) Parkinson's Disease and (b) other neurological conditions.

Currently, there are no specific plans to make an assessment of the potential impact of shortages in the number of clinicians specialising in neurology on the adequacy of care for patients with Parkinson's disease or other neurological conditions.

As of July 2024, there were over 1,800 full-time equivalent (FTE) doctors working in the specialty of neurology in National Health Service trusts and other organisations in England. This includes over 900 FTE consultant neurologists. In 2023, the fill rate for recruitment into the specialty of neurology in England was 94%.

The NHS workforce has been overworked for years, leading to staff becoming burnt out and demoralised. We must be honest about the challenges we are facing. The NHS is broken but not beaten and together we will turn it around.

We have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS. The plan will set out a bold agenda to deliver on the three big shifts needed, to move healthcare from hospital to the community, from analogue to digital, and from treatment to prevention. A central and core part of the 10-Year Health Plan will be our workforce and how we ensure we train and provide the staff, technology, and infrastructure the NHS needs to care for patients across our communities.

There are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with Parkinson’s disease in England, including the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Programme for Neurology, the RightCare Progressive Neurological Conditions Toolkit, and the Neurology Transformation Programme (NTP).

The GIRFT National Specialty Report made recommendations designed to improve services nationally and to support the NHS to deliver care more equitably across the country. In addition, the NTP has developed a model of integrated care for neurology services to support integrated care boards to deliver the right service, at the right time for all neurology patients, including providing care closer to home.