Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many radiographers are required to fulfil the long-term objectives of the NHS.

In the Cancer Workforce Plan for England which was published in December 2017, Health Education England (HEE) set out the need to target additional training support.

As part of the development of the NHS People Plan, HEE will now work with NHS England and NHS Improvement to understand the longer-term workforce implications for further development of cancer services. This will include ensuring sustainable growth beyond 2021 in key professions (including radiography) through continued investment in training places, with a greater focus on attracting and retaining students and improving the numbers of qualified professionals who go on to work in the National Health Service. The number of radiographers required will be addressed in the final NHS People Plan and is dependent on the service model used by each NHS trust.

NHS Digital publishes Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics. These include staff working in hospital trusts and clinical commissioning groups, but not staff working in primary care or in general practitioner surgeries, local authorities or other providers.

As at February 2019, latest available data, there were over 14,000 full time equivalent diagnostic radiographers and over 2,000 therapeutic radiographers employed by the NHS trusts and CCGs, 2,990 and 726 more, respectively, since 2010.