Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of covering the insurance costs of employers for volunteer workers in healthcare settings.

There are currently no plans to undertake an assessment regarding insurance arrangements for volunteer workers in healthcare settings.

Whilst all regulated healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom are legally required to maintain appropriate clinical negligence cover and most are covered by state schemes for their National Health Service work, for volunteers it depends on the arrangements made by the NHS organisation. Some volunteer organisations may already have their own insurance in place for their volunteers. It is up to individual NHS organisations to make decisions about the management and deployment of volunteers to support their service needs.