Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what measures the NHS workforce plan will include to support a sustainable NHS mental health workforce in England.

To support the workforce as a whole we have commissioned NHS England to develop a Long Term Workforce Plan, which will include independently verified forecasts for the number of healthcare professionals required in future years. The Plan is for the whole of the National Health Service workforce, including mental health; however, it will not provide detailed workforce assessments for individual services or staff groups.

The mental health workforce has grown. Latest data shows that as of December 2022 there has been an increase of over 8,900, 6.9%, full-time equivalent staff compared to December 2021. This includes only those people who work directly on mental health, across NHS trusts and integrated care boards in England.