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 help support hospitals to (a) recruit and (b) retain clinical staff in Oxfordshire.

Decisions about recruitment are matters for individual National Health Service trusts. NHS trusts manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.

That said, we are committed to training the staff the NHS needs, including clinical staff, and ensuring that the NHS remains an attractive place to work for our staff across the country. NHS England already has an extensive retention programme which is addressing matters that are important to staff, such as good occupational health support, options for working more flexibly, and better culture and leadership.

This summer we will publish a refreshed Long Term Workforce Plan to ensure the NHS has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need when they need it.