Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to recruit more (a) nurses, (b) doctors and (c) clinicians in Suffolk.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have confirmed that the Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care System is currently developing a workforce strategy that will identify the staffing levels required to deliver its patient care objectives for the next five to 10 years.

At national level, 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. The final NHS People Plan will be published in early 2020.

The Government recently pledged to increase nurse numbers by 50,000 in England over the next five years. As part of this commitment, eligible pre-registration nursing students enrolled on courses at English universities from September 2020 will receive a payment of at least £5,000 per academic year which they will not need to pay back.

In addition, in 2016 the Government committed to an extra 1,500 undergraduate medical school places - a 25% increase taking the total number of medical school training places in England to 7,500 by 2020/21. Five new medical schools will open in England to help deliver the expansion.