Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much additional funding announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review they are committing to build a bigger and better NHS workforce.

The Department is working closely with Health Education England and NHS England and NHS Improvement to develop detailed workforce spending plans in the coming months.

The Government has committed to training some of the biggest undergraduate intakes of medical and nursing students ever. In addition, we will be training more midwives and allied health professionals, who are key to delivering the full range of services to the National Health Service.

We have already seen significant increases to the NHS workforce, with 20% more NHS staff in Hospital and Community Health Services since June 2011, and over 21,000 more full time equivalent nurses in the NHS since June 2019. We recognise there is more to be done however, and a key part of ensuring there are sufficient specialists is training more people who can join the NHS. This is why we remain committed to delivering the government commitment of 50,000 additional nurses.