The Parliamentary Health and Social Care Select Committee (Westminster) has invited organisations, groups and individuals to submit evidence concerning burnout and resilience in the NHS and social care workforce in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic. We submitted this statement on Friday (4^th September), the closing date for submissions. ACP-UK is in a unique position to comment on these issues, not only because our members have been working with Covid-19 patients and supporting frontline staff both locally and nationally, but also because from the outset we have been involved in the NHS national healthcare staff support strategy in the four nations as expert advisors.

The Select Committee asked for comment on any or all of the following questions:

• How resilient was the NHS and social care workforce under pre-COVID-19 operating conditions, and how might that resilience be strengthened in the future?
• What has the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic been on resilience, levels of workforce stress, and burnout across the NHS and social care sectors?
• What is the current scale of workforce burnout across NHS and social care?  How does it manifest, how is it assessed, and what are its causes and contributing factors?  To what extent are NHS and care staff able to balance their working and personal lives?
• What are the impacts of workforce burnout on service delivery, staff, patients and service users across the NHS and social care sectors?
• What long term projections for the future health and social care workforce are available, and how many more staff are required so that burnout and pressure on the frontline are reduced? To what extent are staff establishments in line with current and future resilience requirements?
• To what extent are there sufficient numbers of NHS and social care professionals in training for service and resilience planning? On what basis are decisions made about the supply and demand for professionals in training?
• Will the measures announced in the People Plan so far be enough to increase resilience, improve working life and productivity, and reduce the risk of workforce burnout across the NHS, both now and in the future?
• What further measures will be required to tackle and mitigate the causes of workforce stress and burnout, and what should be put in place to achieve parity for the social care workforce?