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Workforce concerns 'single biggest risk facing services'

Patient safety and quality of care are at risk due to a workforce gap in the NHS, health leaders have said.

Patient safety and quality of care are at risk due to a workforce gap in the NHS, health leaders have said.


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Workforce concerns have become the 'single biggest risk facing services', according to NHS Providers, a membership body, which represents health service organisations.

The gap between the number of staff NHS bodies need and the number they are able to recruit and retain is now unsustainable, according to the body's latest report, A better future for the NHS workforce.

'The NHS is struggling to cope with growing and changing pressures. We have now reached a tipping point: workforce concerns have become the single biggest risk facing services,' the report states.

The authors said that the workforce gap has almost certainly widened since Health Education England reported a staffing shortfall of 5.9% or 50,000 clinical staff in 2014.

Failing to keep up with demands

It said that while the number of clinical staff has increased over the last seven years, this growth has 'not kept pace with rising demand for services'.

The body, which is holding its annual meeting in Birmingham, also said that it is unclear whether tactics aimed at improving home-grown NHS staff will be enough to meet growing demand.

A new poll of 149 chairmen and chief executives of NHS trusts and foundation trusts found that 66% believed workforce challenges were the most pressing issue facing their trust.

When asked for the biggest challenges to recruitment and retention at their trust, 60% of trust chairmen and chief executives cited work pressure and 38% cited pay and reward.

The survey also found that 85% said it would be important to recruit staff from outside the UK in the next three years.

Brexit challenges

But uncertainty linked to Brexit was cited as a challenge in the recruitment of overseas health workers.

Commenting on the report, RCN general secretary Janet Davies said: 'NHS leaders fear that patients are paying the price as staffing shortages bite. Ministers can no longer dismiss warnings of this kind.

'When the NHS has never been busier, it is haemorrhaging experienced nurses at a faster rate than it can find new recruits. For as long as we fail to train enough British nurses, we must be able to recruit the best from around Europe. If there is a ‘cliff edge’ in 2019, it will be the NHS going over it.'

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said: 'The staff and skills shortages we now see reflect a fundamental failure at national level on workforce strategy.

'We don't have enough staff with the right skills and we're asking far too much of our existing staff.'

A Department of Health spokesperson said: 'The NHS has over 12,700 more doctors and 10,600 more nurses on wards since May 2010 – but we know that we need more staff.

'That's why we recently announced the biggest ever expansion of training places for doctors and nurses, as well as being clear that the future of EU nationals is a top priority in the Brexit negotiations and we want their valued contribution to the NHS to continue – to ensure the NHS has the staff it needs now and in the future.'

Further information

Read the report


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