The much anticipated and eagerly awaited NHS Long Term Workforce Plan has been published: in itself an important achievement and, like so many organisations who have called for this, we were pleased to digest its 151 pages.
The challenges are stark: 112,000 clinical vacancies currently; expected to increase to 360,000 in 2037. The recruitment plans are rightly ambitious in addressing this: the increased training numbers for all health care professionals are hugely welcome.
The innovation proposed in shortening training times will need to be monitored carefully: increased patient complexity and treatments does not lend itself to this approach. We need to protect our standards of training that can deliver world leading care.
The key element and that of the greatest and most imminent concern remains that of staff retention. We cannot continue to haemorrhage staff from the service at the current rate. Will this plan reverse that and help restore staff and patient confidence?
There are some important proposals to improve culture, valuing staff well-being and supporting flexible working. However, there is no commitment to minimum safe-staffing levels which is disappointing. The dependence on Government to determine pay rewards means that the success of the plan remains out of its scope: strikes, low morale and the workforce exodus will continue unless this is addressed.
Will patients still be receiving corridor care and having poor experiences in acute and emergency care this winter? Yes. Some urgent short-term actions are still required.
Will they still be experiencing this in future years? This plan provides a framework to avoid this and that is promising. The document recognises the need to reward health care professionals appropriately.
This is an important starting point but without plans to improve pay and conditions to recognise the expertise, commitment and hard work of staff this plan will fail.