Responding to MPs' rejection of the vote on the workforce amendment to the Health and Care Bill by 61 votes, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson said:

"Trust leaders will be disappointed by this outcome.

"MPs could have taken decisive action today to help put the NHS' workforce on an even keel. By backing Jeremy Hunt's cross party amendment, they would have created a robust system for long term workforce planning that our health system desperately needs.

"The NHS has 93,000 staff vacancies and is spending £6bn a year on temporary staff to cover those vacancies. We are asking the impossible of our workforce with large numbers of staff having to regularly work extra unpaid hours and increasing numbers reporting illness due to work related stress.

"This is putting patient safety increasingly at risk and quality of care under pressure. Too many staff are saying they want to leave the NHS because they can no longer look after patients in the way they need to.

"But our fight for a robust approach to long term NHS workforce planning isn't over yet. Working with over 60 other health and care organisations, we will take this battle to the House of Lords in the hope that they will take the decisive action we need."