The hon. Gentleman is right that that is happening and I will come on to that matter in more detail. I would be happy to meet him, because it is an issue that I know needs gripping not just at the national level but by local integrated care boards too.
As hon. Members have pointed out, training the doctors, nurses and allied health professionals of the future takes time. We have to plan for the next decade now, as the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said. Despite the challenges, we have a growing NHS
workforce. We have record numbers of staff working in our NHS. There are record numbers of doctors and nurses. The NHS now has over 1.2 million full-time equivalent staff. In the last year alone, there were over 15,800 more professionally qualified clinical staff in trusts, and 129,800 more hospital and community health service staff than in 2019. Nursing numbers are 29,000 higher than in 2019, which means that we are on track to meet the 50,000 extra nurses manifesto commitment.
However, as the hon. Member for Wirral West pointed out, we face challenges. There are over 132,000 vacancies, including, as she rightly said, 40,000 nursing and midwifery vacancies, and vacancies for around 10,000 doctors. As the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) rightly pointed out, that means an over-reliance on bank and agency staff. They have their place, but they come at a significant cost, of which we have to be mindful.
We have a long-term workforce plan, which is an NHS England-commissioned project that will set out what workforce we need across the next five, 10 and 15 years. As the Chancellor said in the autumn statement, it will be independently verified. It will look at recruitment, retention and productivity. It will look at where the challenges and the gaps are. As the hon. Member for York Central, who is no longer in her place, rightly asked, what do we need the NHS to look like? Do we need specialists? Do we need more generalists? Do we need a mixture of skills, where people are specialists but also retain generalist skills so that they can do other work? The plan is for the project to report back by the end of this year—very soon—and that independent verification process will then take place. Integrated care boards will need to do the same, or a similar, piece of work at local level.
I am also aware that there are specific challenges. The hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale rightly raised mental health services. An extra £2.3 billion is going in, and our plan is to recruit an extra 27,000 staff, but it is a challenge, which is why we have the advanced bursary in that area. We have increased staff in the area by an extra 5.4%. I know that is not enough, and I know the challenges on local mental health services, so we have to do more.
There is a similar challenge in rural and coastal communities, which the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has raised with me many a time. We have to look to expand the apprenticeship route and blended learning programmes so that people do not have to travel to big towns and cities to undertake their training. That work is being done, and there is an extra £55 million for additional placement capacity.
Investment in training is also important. We funded an extra 1,500 medical school places—a 25% increase—last year and this year. That was an investment in five new medical schools. The £5,000 non-repayable grant for nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals has been in place since 2020. There is also additional funding for certain courses, and for things such as support for childcare, dual accommodation, and costs and travel.