Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of midwives in Aldershot constituency.

The Government will make sure the National Health Service has the staff it needs, to be there for all of us when we need it, and will get the staff to the places where patients and the NHS need them. This will not only benefit the Aldershot constituency, but the whole of the NHS in England.

Recruitment decisions do not sit with the Government but instead are the responsibility of the local employers, who are best placed to understand the diverse needs of their communities. They subsequently manage their own recruitment to ensure they have the right number of staff, with the right skill mix, to provide the safe and effective care that their patients need. Each trust has a retention midwife who focuses on retention and providing pastoral support to midwives as they consider their future options in and outside of the NHS.