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 expand the size of the mental health workforce to meet the demand for mental health services after the covid-19 outbreak.

We remain committed to growing the mental health workforce to achieve the ambitions set out in the NHS Long Term Plan. The interim NHS People Plan, published in June 2019 set out actions to reduce vacancies and secure the staff we need for the future. Since then, there have been a number of initiatives put in place to increase the National Health Service mental health workforce. The final People Plan will be published in due course, will set out a further robust plan for growth in the nursing and medical workforce.