Speaking on the Trevor Phillips on Sunday show, Chris Hopson, Chief Executive of NHS Providers said:

"The challenges facing the NHS workforce are stark. 93,000 NHS staff vacancies. £6bn annual NHS spending on temporary staff to cover those vacancies. 55% of NHS staff saying they work unpaid extra hours every week and 44% saying they have felt unwell in the last year due to work related stress.

"We are now asking the impossible of our workforce. Despite staff working harder and harder, patient safety is increasingly at risk and quality of care increasingly 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.

"This week the government can create the robust system for long term workforce planning that our health system desperately needs. That's why trust leaders are insistent that the government must support this week's cross party amendment to the Health and Care Bill to create that system."

And commenting on the review of medical devices announced by the health and social care secretary, Sajid Javid, Chris Hopson said:

"Trust leaders will also welcome the announcement by the health secretary today of a review into racial bias in medical equipment. The COVID-19 pandemic has cruelly laid bare the fault lines within our society and highlighted the structural inequalities at play across the health service. Every part of the system must be held fully to account for how they are tackling racial bias and other inequalities in their organisations and in the services they deliver."