Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when a long-term workforce plan which sets out the number of staff required to meet the current and future needs of cancer patients will be published.

The interim NHS People Plan, published on 3 June 2019, puts the workforce at the heart of the National Health Service and will ensure we have the staff needed to deliver high quality care. A final People Plan will be published soon after the conclusion of the 2019 Spending Review.

Phase 1 of the Cancer Workforce Plan for England, published in December 2017 by Health Education England (HEE), set out plans to expand capacity and skills in the cancer workforce, including targeting additional training support for seven priority professions which are key to cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment, such as clinical radiology, histopathology, oncology and diagnostic and therapeutic radiography.

HEE will now work with NHS England and NHS Improvement to understand the longer-term workforce implications of further development of cancer services. This work will inform the final People Plan.