Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the NHS workforce strategy will priorities the specialist training required for people working with people with complex needs.

The interim People Plan, published on 3 June 2019, recognises the need to move to a multi-disciplinary model of care, particularly for people with more complex health and care needs, and places general practitioners at the heart of this model.

In advance of publishing the final People Plan, NHS England will work to implement the plan set out in Health Education England and NHS Improvement’s report, ‘Maximising the Potential: essential measures to support SAS doctors’, published in February 2019.

The aim is to provide further support and flexible training for specialty and associate specialist doctors, and establish a national programme board to address geographical and specialty shortages in medicine. The report can be accessed here:

https://www.hee.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/documents/SAS_Report_Web.pdf

Skills for Care and Health Education England are working to ensure that the health and social care workforce have the skills and training they need, including when working with people with complex needs.