A report by the Health and Social Care Committee has warned that the NHS and social care are facing the biggest workforce crisis in their history, which is being made worse by the lack of a credible government strategy to tackle the situation.
The report says that persistent understaffing in the NHS poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety in routine and emergency care.
According to the report, the NHS and social care are facing the greatest workforce crisis in their history, compounded by the absence of a credible government strategy to tackle the situation, say MPs. In the NHS, persistent understaffing poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety in routine and emergency care.
The report, named "The Workforce: recruitment, training and retention report' explains new research that suggests the NHS in England is short of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives. It also goes on to cite evidence on workforce projections that say an extra 475,000 jobs will be needed in health and an extra 490,000 jobs in social care by the early part of the next decade. Furthermore, hospital waiting lists reached an all-time high of nearly 6.5 million in April.
The report claims the government have have shown a "marked reluctance to act decisively", with the refusal to do proper workforce planning risking plans to tackle the Covid backlog.
Despite a government pledge to deliver 6,000 more full-time equivalent GPs, the number has actually decreased by more than 700 over three years to March 2022. Then health secretary Sajid Javid told the inquiry he was not on track to deliver them.
A situation where NHS pension arrangements force senior doctors to reduce working hours was labelled a “national scandal” and the report called for swift action to remedy this.
Health and Social Care Committee Chair Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt said: “Persistent understaffing in the NHS poses a serious risk to staff and patient safety, a situation compounded by the absence of a long term plan by the government to tackle it.
“We now face the greatest workforce crisis in history in the NHS and in social care with still no idea of the number of additional doctors, nurses and other professionals we actually need. NHS professionals know there is no silver bullet to solve this problem but we should at least be giving them comfort that a plan is in place. This must be a top priority for the new Prime Minister.”
