Record numbers of doctors, nurses, dentists and other healthcare staff will be trained in England as part of the first ever Long Term Workforce Plan published by the NHS – helping to deliver one of the Government’s key priorities to cut waiting lists.
Backed by £2.4 billion of funding over the next five years, the plan represents long-term investment to deliver the most radical modernisation and reform of the workforce since the NHS was founded in 1948.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out how the NHS will address existing vacancies and meet the challenges of a growing and ageing population by recruiting and retaining hundreds of thousands more staff over 15 years and working in new ways.
Taken with retention measures, the NHS Plan could mean the health service has at least an extra 60,000 doctors, 170,000 more nurses and 71,000 more allied health professionals in place by 2036/37. The Plan sets out how flexible opportunities will be improved for staff who are thinking of retiring, to keep them for longer; and make it easier for those who have already left to come back in flexible, contracted roles or as part of the temporary staffing workforce. The government will continue to reform the pension scheme so staff can partially retire or return to work seamlessly and continue building their pension after retirement. This is in addition to the substantial pension tax reforms in the Spring Budget which mean doctors are not disincentivised from continuing their NHS work or taking on extra hours.
The plan also commits to ongoing national funding for continuing professional development for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, so NHS staff are supported to meet their full potential. The government will also improve childcare support through changes made for working parents over the next three years in the Spring Budget that will help support staff to stay in work.
In the short term, the workforce is already growing and there are almost 59,000 more staff compared to a year ago, including over 5,800 more doctors and almost 14,900 more nurses. We are also on track to deliver 50,000 more nurses by next year, with over 44,000 more nurses in April 2023 compared with September 2019. The government also recently expanded the number of medical school places by 25%.
AI also has the potential to free up clinical time and improve accuracy and efficiency of diagnostics in services such as ophthalmology, imaging, pathology and dermatology through interpreting images and automating some clinical decisions, where it is safe to do so. For example, AI can help the delivery of radiotherapy in cancer by reducing the time radiotherapy teams spend isolating tumours for treatment.
In a nutshell, the government will:
1. Train more staff
We will fund the largest ever expansion in domestic education and training places, significantly increasing the number of training places across the NHS workforce.
By 2031 we will:
- Double the number of medical school training places, with more places in areas of the country with the greatest shortages
- Increase the number of GP training places by 50%
- Almost double the number of adult nurse training places, with 24,000 more nurse and midwife training places a year
- Expand dental training places by 40%
2. Retain staff
A renewed focus on retention should mean that up to 130,000 staff stay working in NHS settings longer. We will take action to improve culture, leadership and wellbeing of NHS staff, including:
- Modernising the NHS pension scheme through new retirement flexibilities to help retain our most experienced staff, whilst making it easier and attractive for retired staff to return
- Support for continuing professional development;
- Occupational health services for NHS staff; and
- Additional childcare – as announced at the Spring Budget
3. Reform the way staff work
The Plan sets out actions to modernise how people work and train:
- Expanding the training of new roles, such as nursing associates, physician associates and anaesthesia associates, which will support and free up other clinical colleagues
- Growing the number of staff in advanced, and enhanced clinical and consultant practice roles
- Increasing the number of degree-level apprenticeship routes to enter the nursing, medical and other professions
- Streamlining training to get professionals from the classroom to the clinic more quickly
- Harnessing the use of new technologies including artificial intelligence and remote monitoring to free up clinical time
Richard Fuller MP said:
We know there are pressures on services, particularly following the pandemic, and it is important the NHS changes and adapts in response to this, including with technological and medical advancements.
That is why we are supporting our NHS with record levels of investment, record numbers of doctors and nurses, and wide-ranging reform, including our 15-year NHS workforce plan, backed by £2.4 billion, modernising the workforce, and setting out the largest expansion in training and recruitment in the NHS’ history.
The Government has already invested significantly in education and training – NHS spending this year is at a record high, around 16% higher in real terms than in 2019/20 - and there are more staff working in the NHS than at any point in its history, including a record number of doctors and nurses. Overall, the NHS in England employs around 1.6 million people, one of the world’s largest employers and the largest in the UK.
With these plans for recovery and reform and an embrace of technology and innovation, our NHS will be fit to deliver the best care to patients for another 75 years, as we deliver on the Prime Minister’s pledge to cut waiting lists. I also think it is important the Secretary of State focuses on improving the quality of management systems, particularly clarification of decision rights and responsibilities; and the quality of accounting control systems and how the NHS seeks to improve them.
Richard raised in the House last week that in his view, clarifying the accountability of NHS executives and introducing proper individual accountability for poor performance are two essential needs if the planned 2.3 million employees are going to deliver the desired results. Richard's exchange with the Secretary of State for Health can be watched here.
The full plan can be read here. A factsheet summarising the plan can be read at https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/30/nhs-long-term-workforce-plan-fact-sheet/
