James Buchan

Workforce: NHS plan is doomed unless staff shortage is solved

James Buchan likens the NHS Long Term Plan to an overly ambitious new year’s resolution

15 Jan 2019

Workforce: Irony of easing language test for overseas nurses

Barriers for non-EU nurses are falling to help solve a self-made shortage, says James Buchan

11 Dec 2018

Workforce: England is falling behind on safe staffing

The government would do well to follow the examples of our closest neighbours

26 Nov 2018

The extent of reliance on agency nurses points to the depth of the malaise in the NHS

Temporary staff now have to cover chronic nursing shortages, not just unplanned absence

06 Nov 2018

Workforce: The problem that's bigger than staff turnover

When it comes to staffing, there's a larger, system-wide issue, says James Buchan

01 Nov 2018

Workforce: collapse in district nurse numbers is happening now – action to halt it isn’t

Ministers’ ‘golden hellos’ plan to boost district nurse recruitment still hasn’t materialised

08 Oct 2018

Workforce: Puzzling over the failure to scale up nurse education

England’s failure to increase training of nurses shows the profession has lost out

27 Sep 2018

Student attrition targets shift from unlikely to illusory

The student attrition rate is stuck but targets to improve it seem illusory

13 Sep 2018

Scotland's pay deal: the beginning of the end for a UK-wide approach?

A better pay rise means Scottish nursing is leaving its English colleagues behind

24 Aug 2018

Nurse pay: UK unions need to follow New Zealand’s lead

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation has negotiated an impressive pay deal

13 Aug 2018

Recruitment contradictions only confuse the post-Brexit plan

Most leave voters want the UK to continue recruiting EU nurses, but how will that work?

06 Aug 2018

Nurses face so many uncertainties over Brexit and immigration control

EU nurses in the UK need to know what their post-Brexit status will be

10 Jul 2018

Nicola Sturgeon's offer to nurses challenges unions and employers

The more Scotland goes its own way on pay, the more it will have to handle its own processes

28 Jun 2018

Workforce: New technology will not displace old funding issues

The prime minister may laud the benefits of IT, but the NHS has more pressing needs

11 Jun 2018

Workforce: Offer to Jamaican nurses marred by Windrush

Timing is all in politics, says James Buchan

23 Apr 2018

Workforce: What can we learn from the ‘pay pendulum’ of decades ago?

Since the mid-1980s, the Pay Review Body has been fairly successful in keeping nurse pay on an even keel, but it’s clear the system now needs fixing, says workforce expert James Buchan

06 Apr 2018

Workforce: Immigration of skilled younger nurses keeps our NHS running

With ‘self-sufficiency’ in NHS staffing yet to materialise, the UK relies on skilled workers from abroad to maintain viable services

27 Mar 2018

Barriers to overseas nurses and the illusion of self-sufficiency

There is no immediate likelihood of the UK achieving self-sufficiency in nursing, while the approach to international nurses has become incoherent

22 Mar 2018

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