Recommendation 10

In our July 2020 report on Readying the NHS and social care for the COVID-19 peak, we recommended that the Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I) should identify and agree with relevant professional bodies specific actions to support health and social care staff to recover from the impact of the first peak and how they will monitor and provide further support to staff through to the end of the pandemic.20 In its response, the government noted that NHSE&I had established the NHS COVID-19 support programme that includes resources or individuals, line managers and teams that includes one-to-one and group support; health and wellbeing apps and guides; and access to two national helplines.21 We asked the Department what more it was doing to support staff across the health and social care sector. The Department acknowledged that the NHS workforce had been under intense pressure and that research was being undertaken to better understand this. It recognised that “one of the biggest things we can do to support the workforce is to ensure that our hospitals and other places are fully staffed” and this would require more people. It explained that the government had committed to increasing the number of nurses by 50,000 over the current parliament. It asserted that it had 10,800 more nurses than 12 months ago, as well as more doctors, and that training numbers were “very encouraging”. The Department told us that the NHS was working to support the existing workforce, including investing £15 million in 2021 and £37 million in 2021–22 in providing mental health support and counselling services for its workforce. It also noted that the NHS People Plan was focusing on flexible working and improved rostering.22