Draft:Therese Coffey’s tenure as Deputy Prime Minister

Thérèse Coffey served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from September to October 2022 under the Truss administration with Liz Truss

Term (2022)
Truss appointed Coffey as Deputy Prime Minister and Health and Social Care Secretary in her new government on 6 September 2022. Her appointment made her the first woman to serve as Deputy Prime Minister. In September 2022, Coffey identified four priorities for the Department of Health "A, B, C, D" – ambulances, backlog, care, and doctors and dentists.

Asked about nurses leaving to go abroad, Coffey said: "It is their choice of course if they want to do that, but then we also have an open route for people to come into this country who are professional staff". These comments came following a minimum estimated 38,000 nurse shortage; the number of nurses leaving the NHS in London had risen by 24% the past year and more than two-thirds of NHS trusts were reporting a "significant or severe impact" from staff leaving for better paid jobs in retail and hospitality