Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to address excessive staff workload in the NHS.

The National Health Service has established a People Recovery Task Force to ensure that all NHS staff, including students and trainees, are able to recover and maintain their wellbeing as we plan and deliver the restoration of services. We have put in place a comprehensive support package available to all NHS staff which includes health and wellbeing apps, a counselling helpline and text service, as well as 40 mental health hubs.

In the longer term we are addressing capacity in the workforce by delivering 50,000 more nurses and ensuring a sustainable supply of staff in future. We funded an extra 1,500 undergraduate medical school places per year at English universities in 2020/21, with the total number of medical school training places in England now at 7,500 per year.