Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what funding his Department is providing to assist NHS hospitals in implementing the systems and processes required to efficiently capture, manage and publish safe staffing numbers.

Safe staffing numbers are published on NHS Choices – for the first time in the NHS’ history under this government.

NHS Choices is a Department of Health funded programme, commissioned by NHS England and delivered by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. As part of this funding, NHS England commissioned NHS Choices to create a patient safety hub and publish safety-related data, including safe staffing numbers.

A core facility of NHS Choices includes hospital profiles which are editable and managed by hospitals themselves. NHS hospitals have been publishing staffing information on their profiles since June 2014.