Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the announcement made by the Chief Executive of NHS England at the International Practitioner Health Summit 2018, if he has plans to extend the Practitioner Health Programme to (a) nurses, (b) midwives, (c) other NHS practitioners and (d) professionals treating NHS patients.

There are no plans to include nurses, midwives, other NHS practitioners or professionals treating National Health Service patients in the roll out of the Practitioner Health Programme, which is a free, confidential service for doctors and dentists who have mental health and/or addiction concerns, or physical health issues that may be affecting their mental health or ability to work. More information on the announcement can be found at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2018/10/nhs-to-prioritise-doctors-mental-health/

NHS Improvement’s health and wellbeing collaborative involves 73 trusts which will identify and roll out 10 high impact actions as part of the NHS commitment to reducing NHS staff sickness absence by 1% by 2020 and to the public services average by 2022.

Both the Framework and NHS Improvement health and wellbeing collaborative embed ‘Thriving at Work’ principles which are aimed at improving workplace mental health.

NHS England has an incentive programme running to 2019 which encourages trusts to invest in innovative new services to support their staff health and wellbeing. To trigger the incentive payments, trusts have to demonstrate a 5% improvement or 75% positive response to two of three NHS Staff Survey questions on health and wellbeing.