The NHS long-term workforce plan –which has been years in the making – revealed last week that the NHS would have a 300,000-staffing hole to plug by 2030.
Most of the plans to address the shortfall were floated or leaked to the press in recent months, including increasing medical and nursing degree placements and shortening them.
The major focus of the plan was "supply", as it detailed ambitions to increase the number of clinicians taking up training roles within the NHS. This was largely welcome in health land, as was the plan's detail more generally.
One gripe was that the plan did not focus enough on retention. This is true, however there are fewer clear actionable measures which can be applied to retaining staff. Essentially keeping people working in the NHS depends on a range of issues including pay, workload, and flexibility. The government never intended to address pay within this plan and the workload will hopefully benefit from more staff qualifying.
This plan won't have much impact on short-term pressures within the NHS so don't expect it to yield any results before the next election.
As a quid pro quo for the £2.4 billion investment in training, the NHS has been set tough productivity expectations. "Productivity" for the NHS would essentially be delivering more care. Within the plan, the government has acknowledged providing more care relies on investment things such as estates and IT.
A couple of minor but interesting points, which you probably won't have seen, include:
- A potential "ban" on NHS staff working for agencies
- No increase in midwifery trainees after 2025 (I've been trying to get to the bottom of why this is)
- A clear movement away from reliance on international recruitment
As a follow up to the plan health leaders warned the government the ambitions for the NHS would be limited without an equivalent plan for social care.
This is a good point; all of the gains from a bigger supply of NHS workforce will be reduced if social care buckles, as this will only drive more people to require NHS care. It would be fair to say social care services face an even bigger workforce crisis compared to the NHS.
Overall, while the workforce plan is sensible and welcome it will not be a holy grail.
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