Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Clinical radiology UK workforce census 2020 report, what assessment he has made of the (a) trends in the number of UK radiologists and (b) need to expand the clinical radiologist workforce for proposed community diagnostic hubs.

NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), but not staff working in social care, primary care, local authorities or private sector providers commissioned by the National Health Service.

The latest data at January 2021 shows there are over 4,800 full-time equivalent clinical radiologists employed in NHS trusts and CCGs in England - an increase of over 200 or 4.6% since January 2020.

The recent one-year spending review settlement has enabled the expansion of clinical radiology training programmes by 110 in 2021/22.