Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of psychological support and resources available to doctors and nurses in primary care.

The National Health Service currently provides comprehensive mental health support for doctors and dentists in England through the NHS Practitioner Health Programme, a mental health assessment and treatment service that NHS doctors including general practitioners and dentists can access confidentially via self-referral.

Last year, we asked NHS England to develop an NHS People Plan to address workforce challenges and improve the support offered to all NHS staff. The health and wellbeing of NHS staff is very important. As part of the NHS People Plan, we plan to set out a comprehensive package of support that all NHS staff can expect to receive from their employer, including rapid access to occupational health services and psychological support. Publication of the final NHS People Plan has been deferred to allow the NHS to provide maximum operational effort to COVID-19 response. However, we have commissioned the NHS to urgently put in place a package of support for NHS staff during the COVID-19 response. Details of this will be released soon.