Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure that healthcare services can (a) recruit and (b) retain occupational therapists in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions about recruitment are matters for individual National Health Service trusts. NHS trusts manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place and with the right skills mix, to deliver safe and effective care. These staff include allied health professionals such as radiographers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists.
The Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, to ensure that we retain more of our skilled and dedicated staff. NHS England is leading work nationally through its retention programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure that healthcare services can (a) recruit and (b) retain speech therapists in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions about recruitment are matters for individual National Health Service trusts. NHS trusts manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place and with the right skills mix, to deliver safe and effective care. These staff include allied health professionals such as radiographers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists.
The Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, to ensure that we retain more of our skilled and dedicated staff. NHS England is leading work nationally through its retention programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure that healthcare services can (a) recruit and (b) retain physiotherapists in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions about recruitment are matters for individual National Health Service trusts. NHS trusts manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place and with the right skills mix, to deliver safe and effective care. These staff include allied health professionals such as radiographers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists.
The Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, to ensure that we retain more of our skilled and dedicated staff. NHS England is leading work nationally through its retention programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking with blood cancer (a) charities, (b) academic institutions and (c) professional bodies to improve recruitment and retention in the blood cancer workforce.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions about recruitment are matters for individual National Health Service trusts. NHS trusts manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.
The Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, to ensure that we retain more of our skilled and dedicated staff. NHS England is leading work nationally through its retention programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.
NHS England is working with partners, including the Royal College of Pathologists, Cancer Alliances, and genomics programme leads, to strengthen diagnostic workforce capacity across cancer services, including pathology and cancer genomics. This includes investing in new training pathways, digital pathology, and genomics education.
Asked by: Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat - Dorking and Horley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of resolving NHS employment disputes early.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made this specific assessment. National Health Service employment disputes arising at a local level are for employers to manage and resolve locally. At a national level, the Government has prioritised improving industrial relations following the General Election in July 2024. The deal we agreed with resident doctors in England, negotiated within four weeks of being in Government, brought an end to their prolonged strikes and we will continue to work with resident doctors to improve their working lives and keep them in the NHS.
Our ambition remains to reset the relationship between the Government and all NHS staff, and we want to work collaboratively with trade unions to address concerns and foster a productive and positive relationship with the NHS workforce.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the national cancer strategy will include commitments to improve outcomes for (a) acute myeloid leukaemia and (b) other rare and less common cancers.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan will seek to improve the experience and outcomes for people with rarer and less common cancers, including acute myeloid leukaemia. The plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, and ultimately bringing this country’s cancer survival rates back up to the standards of the best in the world.
The plan will foster opportunities for UK researchers to collaborate on international cancer research, which is particularly important for areas where affected populations are small, such as with rare cancers. The plan will also consider the ways that we can accelerate the uptake of innovative, life-saving treatments so all NHS patients can benefit. We will work closely with partners including the National Institute for Health and Care Research on this.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support the retention of social workers in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to making the National Health Service the best place to work, to ensure the retention of our hardworking and dedicated staff, including social workers.
NHS England is leading the National Retention Programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.
In addition, the Department currently funds the Assessed Year in Employment to support the development and retention of newly qualified social workers employed within the statutory, private, voluntary, or independent sectors. This is a 12-month, employer led and employment-based programme of support and assessment for newly qualified social workers.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has considered reallocating Child Tax Credit payments previously claimed by a child’s parents prior to their entering foster care to that child while in care.
Answered by Darren Jones - Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
Child Tax Credit has been fully replaced by Universal Credit and Pension Credit since 6 April 2025. The Department for Work and Pensions has invited all eligible customers to claim. There are consequently no plans to review past Child Tax Credit rules or arrangements.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential reasons for health professionals leaving the NHS, to the lowest available data level; and what steps his Department is taking to promote improved staff retention.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes quarterly data on the broad reasons for staff leaving and staff movements in National Health Service trusts and other core organisations, support organisations, and central bodies in England. This is published as part of the NHS Workforce Statistics publication, which is available at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics
In addition, the latest timeseries data, which runs to September 2024, is available at the following link:
The Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, to ensure the retention of our hardworking and dedicated staff. NHS England is leading the National Retention Programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts.
Retention efforts are aligned with the NHS People Promise, which was co-developed with staff to reflect what matters to them. This ensures that trusts have access to proven retention strategies and data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.
Asked by: Chris Bloore (Labour - Redditch)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether their Department offers (a) paid time off work and (b) other support to employees who become kinship carers.
Answered by Catherine West
The government defines kinship care as "any situation in which a child is being raised in the care of a friend or family member who is not their parent". The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) offers support to employees who become kinship carers, similar to the support provided to foster carers. The entitlements include:
These provisions ensure that employees who take on the important role of kinship carers have the necessary support and flexibility to manage their responsibilities effectively. Staff also have a statutory right to take unpaid time off work to deal with an emergency involving a dependant.