Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to invest in NHS occupational health services; and whether any such plans include procurement from private sector providers which have capacity to provide services.

Occupational health services are vitally important in keeping people healthy and safe in the workplace. The command paper, Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability, committed to setting out a clear strategy for the future occupational health market reform. Following the Health is everyone’s business consultation published in July 2019, an upcoming response will outline future occupational health strategy.

The health and wellbeing of National Health Service staff is very important. As part of the NHS People Plan, we plan to set out a comprehensive package of support that all NHS staff can expect to receive from their employer, including rapid access to occupational health services. Publication of the final NHS People Plan has been deferred to allow the NHS to provide maximum operational effort to COVID-19 response. However, we have commissioned the NHS to urgently put in place a package of support for NHS staff during COVID-19 response.