Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) hire people with technical data skills and knowledge for senior roles in the NHS and (b) train those in senior roles in the basics of data analysis as recommended in the Goldacre review.

We are currently considering the recommendations of the Goldacre review, including those relating to modernising National Health Service analytics. However, the data strategy for health and social care, which will be published in summer 2022, outlines the intention to improve the skills of the current data and analytics workforce and build a team of future analytical leaders. This will include unified competency frameworks aligned to the Government Analysis Function skills, as part of a national competency framework for data professionals in health and care. We will work with the NHS to promote analytical and data skills through the strategy alongside existing projects, such as the Digital Readiness Education Programme.