Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of vacancies in (a) nursing and (b) midwifery in each English NHS trust; and if he will instruct NHS Digital to publish monthly vacancy data for each such trust.

The information is not available in the format requested.

Health Education England (HEE) provides estimates of staff shortages and the plan for tackling these issues as part of their Workforce Plan for England publication. The latest figures are available at the following link.

https://hee.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Workforce%20Plan%20for%20England%202016-17.pdf

HEE plans to publish the Workforce Plan for England 2017/18 in due course.

NHS Digital is engaged in a Vacancy Information Subgroup of the Workforce Information Review Group which is tasked with scoping the requirements of the National Health Service for healthcare recruitment information. This includes developing agreed definitions for key concepts, such as vacancies; understanding current data sources, gaps and issues; and producing proposals to overhaul the current data standards and guidance to improve this situation. The subgroup covers a wide range of stakeholders, including (but not limited to) the Department, NHS England, Heath Education England, NHS Employers and a range of NHS trusts.