Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of current staffing levels in the NHS.

Stephen Hammond, Minister of State for Health: It is the responsibility of individual National Health Service health and care employers to have staffing arrangements in place that deliver safe and effective care. This includes recruiting the staff needed to support these levels and meet local needs.

The NHS employs more staff now than at any other time in its 70-year history, with an increase of 78,000 full time equivalent staff since May 20101.

The interim People Plan puts the workforce at the heart of the NHS and will ensure we have the staff needed to deliver high quality care. The Plan sets out how the NHS will increase the number of nurses, doctors and other staff working in the health service. The NHS will publish a final People Plan soon after the conclusion of the Spending Review.

Note:

1 NHS Digital Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics for England: latest data as at March 2019

Hansard

269597