Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the forthcoming NHS workforce implementation plan will include a plan to increase the numbers of NHS diagnostic radiographers.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has commissioned Baroness Dido Harding Chair of NHS Improvement, working closely with Sir David Behan, Chair of Health Education England, to lead a number of programmes to engage with key National Health Service interests to develop a detailed workforce implementation plan.

This programme of work will consider detailed proposals to grow the workforce, including consideration of the additional staff and skills required to deliver round the clock high quality care. Baroness Harding and Sir David Behan will present initial recommendations to the Department in spring 2019. A final workforce implementation plan will follow later in the year, taking into account the outcomes of the Spending Review.

Universities consistently continue to recruit students onto undergraduate diagnostic radiography university courses in England, with acceptances onto courses increasing every year since 2014. The latest NHS Digital data shows that as at October 2018 there are 3,084 more full time equivalent diagnostic radiographers in the NHS than there were in May 2010.

Diagnostic radiographer education and training and recruitment in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland is a matter for the devolved governments in each nation.