Workforce plan whispers
This week the government and NHS were supposed to unveil the long-awaited, long-term workforce plan.
Unsurprisingly, publication has been delayed. A few details of the draft versions have hit the headlines in previous months and over the weekend The Independent revealed a new one.
Ministers have briefed several sources on the plan and have floated the idea of shorter medical and nursing degrees. Ideas which were floated in draft versions of the plan included condensing the first five years of a medical degree to four. This could potentially be done by squeezing terms at the margins, according to sources.
For nursing degrees there were the suggestions student nurses could either join the register earlier or courses could be condensed to two and a half years rather than three. The latter would be hard considering how intense nursing courses already are.
According to sources everything is up in the air following the latest delay and so it may be these controversial plans will not survive the cut.
However, a key takeaway from this and previous stories about the plan is that the government appear to be focusing far more on recruiting new staff than keeping current experienced ones.
Vital services under threat
When funding decisions are made for NHS services community and mental health services are most often negatively impacted.
This week The Independent reported on a warning from healthcare leaders that staff providing NHS care but not directly employed by the NHS have been cut out of the government's latest pay deal.
This will affect services such as end of life care and public health services in which care is provided by social enterprises, independent sector providers and local authorities.
These so called "non-statutory" organisations will not get any new funding to uplift the pay of their staff, many of whom are on contracts equivalent to NHS workers. These organisations may be left with the choice of losing their workers if they don't increase pay or cutting back services to fund their pay rise.
In other news…
- The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has published a report warning the government 700 new trainee doctors will be needed to tackle the A&E crisis. You can read it here.
- A controversial move by the Metropolitan Police was revealed recently by The Observer. Read my take on it here.
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