Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the progress towards the measures to retain doctors included in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan has a strong focus on retention, but is not starting from scratch. It builds on measures put in place though the NHS People Promise and NHS People Plan, to improve organisational culture, and the workplace experience of staff across the National Health Service.

The learning from the NHS National Retention Programme is that single retention interventions rarely have an impact, instead what is needed is sustained action over time, to address retention issues. Last month, NHS England set out a range of measures to improve the working lives of doctors in training, including improving choice and flexibility on rotas, streamlining and improving human resources and payroll support, and reforming statutory and mandatory training.

We have also taken action on pensions and changed the NHS Pension Scheme rules to make retirement more flexible, and encourage retired staff to return. This includes a new partial retirement option available from 1 October 2023 as an alternative to full retirement. Staff can now draw down some or all of their pension whilst continuing to work, and further building up their pension.

To ensure the delivery and review the progress of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, a Governance Board has been established to provide cross Government assurance of progress. The Government has committed to updating the modelling that underpins the Long Term Workforce Plan every two years, or in line with fiscal events as appropriate.