Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the impact of NHS provider financial controls on the recruitment of newly qualified nurses into Band 5 nursing posts.

All National Health Service organisations have completed their financial plans for 2026/27, which meet the priorities set out in the Medium Term Planning Framework. These plans have been assured, including whether workforce plans are affordable. The details of the workforce plans, including recruitment at different bands, is for individual providers to decide. National assurance is about the robustness of underlying plan assumptions and affordability, and does not included an assessment of the impact of overall affordability on recruitment to individual bands.