Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to address staffing shortages to ensure that patients receive high-quality, allied healthcare professional and ancillary care, including those patients occupying the additional 7,000 hospital beds announced in August 2022.

Local National Health Service trusts are responsible for managing its own staffing levels and for recruiting the number of health professionals required to meet local service need as part of their workforce planning. The NHS published plans for increasing capacity in urgent and emergency care over winter. The plans looked to reduce hospital occupancy through increasing capacity by the equivalent of at least 7,000 general and acute beds, through a mix of new physical beds, virtual wards and improvements elsewhere in the pathway. This intervention was developed with integrated care boards responsible for developing plans to achieve this increase in bed capacity based on realistic assumptions, including how many staff can be recruited and at what speed.

To help address staff shortages Health Education England (HEE) National Allied Health Professionals (AHP) Workforce Supply Project delivered valuable recruitment initiatives including improved return to practice pathways, pre-registration apprenticeships and more jobs for new graduates helping to improve staffing shortages. A HEE national programme started in 2022/23 to support NHS trusts with AHP international recruitment.

Furthermore, all-eligible nursing, midwifery and allied health profession degree students have received a non-repayable training grant of a minimum of £5,000 per academic year. To support future workforce planning the Department have commissioned NHS England to develop a long term plan for the NHS workforce for the next 15 years. The plan will help ensure that we have the right numbers of staff, with the right skills to transform and deliver high quality services fit for the future.