Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what interventions they are undertaking to reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal conditions among NHS staff.

Employers across the National Health Service have their own arrangements in place in line with their duty of care for supporting their staff, including occupational health provision, employee support programmes, and board level scrutiny through health and wellbeing guardians.

The 10-Year Health Plan committed to the roll out of Staff Treatment Hubs, to provide a high-quality, wellbeing and occupational health service for all NHS staff, including musculoskeletal conditions, one of the main causes of sickness absence in the NHS. Work is underway to develop implementation plans for the Staff Treatments Hubs.

We are also working with Nuffield Health to support NHS staff to access their Joint Pain Programme. The programme is aimed at those staff who are off work due to chronic joint pain or struggling with pain whilst at work and will create up to 4,000 free places annually.