Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the most important factors for the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of NHS staff from EU countries.

No assessment has been made of the most important factors for the recruitment and retention of National Health Service staff from countries in the European Union.

The recently published NHS Long Term Workforce Plan states that we will reduce reliance on international recruitment and agency staff. In 15 years’ time, we expect annually approximately 9-10.5% of new joiners to the workforce to be recruited from overseas, compared to nearly a quarter now.