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NHS race body commits to avoiding blanket terms such as ‘BAME’

An independent body set up by the NHS to tackle health inequalities has formally committed to never use blanket acronyms such as “BAME” after feedback that they are not representative.

The NHS Race and Health Observatory launched a four-week consultation with the public in July on how best to collectively refer to people from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups.

The Observatory said it has become the norm in public policy to use initialisms to refer to a “hugely diverse” group of people, but that renewed scrutiny has been spurred on by the Black Lives Matter movement.

It said terminology that “crudely conflates” different groups “does not just erase identities; it can also lead to broad brush policy decisions that fail to appreciate the nuance of ethnic inequality in the UK”.

Generic collective terms such as “BAME”, “BME” and “ethnic minority” are “not representative or universally popular”, the Observatory said after receiving responses from 5,104 people.

It found no single, collective umbrella term to describe ethnic groups was agreed by the majority of respondents.

The body had previously said it was committed to avoiding the use of acronyms and initialisms, but has now formalised this as one of five key principles it is adopting in its communications.

Where possible it will be specific about the ethnic groups it is referring to, but where collective terminology is necessary it will “always be guided by context and not adopt a blanket term”.

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Source: The Independent, 26 November 2021

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NHS pulls a million face masks from use after safety warning

The NHS has been warned not to use or distribute a batch of high-grade face masks after government officials warned they may not meet safety standards.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it had “received urgent information” suggesting the items did not meet UK government specifications.

Hospital bosses and others including GPs have been told to stop using the FT-045A FFP3 masks, quarantine any remaining supplies and then track down any they might have sent on to other health providers through mutual aid schemes.

DHSC said it was pausing further distribution while a rapid review was carried out. Some 1.12 million masks are affected, the department said.

DHSC’s warning document told health bosses: “Please be assured that we are working with regional teams and providers to fit-test staff to alternative models and provide of them with alternative masks in the quantities needed. We have a good supply of other FFP3 masks.”

Rob Harwood, consultants committee chairman of the British Medical Association, told the BBC: “Healthcare staff working on the frontline do so facing the grave risk of contracting Covid, and deserve the best protection from this deadly virus."

“Many will be incredibly concerned to learn that some masks designed to offer enhanced protection, as well as gloves, may not meet standards, potentially placing them at greater risk.”

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Source: The Independent, 24 February 2021

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NHS publishes response and recommendations on Long Term Plan legislative proposals

The NHS Long Term Plan included suggested changes to the law to help implement the Plan.  In Spring, NHS staff, partner organisations and interested members of the public were invited to give their views on the proposals.

The NHS has published its response to the views it received during engagement and set out its recommendations to Government and Parliament for an NHS Bill. This Bill could help deliver improved patient care by removing barriers and promoting collaboration between NHS organisations and their partners.

Read the NHS’s recommendations to Government and Parliament for an NHS Bill

Source: NHS, 26 September 2019

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NHS psych ward period provision criticised by patients

Imagine being on your period and "forced to beg for pads and tampons". According to 24-year-old Lara, that's common for her and others on mental health hospital wards in the UK.

When she posted about her experience online, people from across the country responded with their own similar stories.

Mental health hospitals have various rules in place for safety reasons, including access to certain items. However, NHS guidance states that period products should be available to anyone who needs them. Lara says this hasn't always been the case for her.

"I've had a number of hospital admissions to psychiatric units and on one of my first they confiscated my period products," she says.

Lara's currently on one-to-one observations for her own safety, which means someone has to escort her to the toilet and watch her change a pad or tampon.

But she says her worst experience was when she's had to wear anti-ligature clothing - again for safety reasons.

"I was forced to remove my pants and sanitary pad - which meant I just had to bleed into the clothing," she says.

"I understand the need for safety to come first, but this experience was unhygienic, traumatising and embarrassing for people to see."

Eleanor is 20 years old and recently spent time in a mental health hospital.

At her "most unwell", she says she didn't have access to her own clothing and had to wear the same special clothing Lara spoke about.

"I'd have two or three people watching me changing and even though I know it's for my own safety, it's dehumanising," she says.

Newsbeat asked a number of unions, organisations and charities to comment on the experiences described but none wanted to provide one.

But one mental health professional, Kasper, did agree to discuss it.

Kasper agrees that safety is always a top priority but adequate period provision is often overlooked."I'm sure all trusts have a policy, but don't think it's always applied - and my observation is that it very much depends on what staff are on shift, especially when there can be lots of agency workers," Kasper says."We do keep products on my ward, but there's not much of a range.

"Patients can't access them and some staff don't know where they are either - so the onus is very much on patients, which can be tricky when they're unwell."

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Source: BBC News, 16 October 2023

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NHS productivity slows despite ministers hailing ‘green shoots of recovery’

Hospital productivity growth has “slowed sharply” in recent months, new analysis has revealed, prompting experts to warn the NHS is set to miss a key government target.

It comes just weeks after ministers celebrated data showing the NHS had exceeded its target to become 2% more productive each year of this parliament.

NHS England data showed the acute sector had delivered 2.7% growth over the past financial year, 2024/25, as the amount of activity rose faster than staffing costs.

However, research carried out by the Health Foundation and the Strategy Unit, which compared staffing and activity growth month-by-month, found “progress has slowed sharply” in the final quarter of 2024/25, and in the first months of the current financial year.

The think tank said: “Further analysis reveals weakening growth across all components of care, with the fastest fall in emergency inpatient care. Staffing growth has slowed too, but not to the same degree. Taken together, this paints a picture of cooling acute productivity growth.”

Anita Charlesworth, who is co-leading the Health Foundation’s commission on NHS productivity, said the target would not be delivered by “short-term, one-off initiatives and getting people to try and have a big push on one aspect of care for a few months”.

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Source: HSJ, 22 October 2025

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NHS productivity lags as recruitment fails to keep pace with demand

The NHS in England faces an uphill struggle to improve productivity as it confronts record waiting lists, with data suggesting that an increase in staff numbers alone will not transform its performance.

Creaking infrastructure, a sicker population and a reliance on less experienced staff are hampering the health service’s attempts to treat people in greater numbers than before the pandemic, according to health experts.

This difficult context is casting a shadow over the government’s goal that hospital waiting lists should be falling by the next election.

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Source: Financial Times, 1 June 2023

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NHS privatisation drive linked to rise in avoidable deaths, study suggests

The privatisation of NHS care accelerated by Tory policies a decade ago has corresponded with a decline in quality and “significantly increased” rates of death from treatable causes, the first study of its kind says.

The hugely controversial shakeup of the health service in England in 2012 by the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, forced local health bodies to put contracts for services out to tender.

Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash has since been handed to private companies to treat NHS patients, according to the landmark review.

It shows the growth in health contracts being tendered to private companies has been associated with a drop in care quality and higher rates of treatable mortality – patient deaths considered avoidable with timely, effective healthcare.

The analysis by the University of Oxford has been published in the Lancet Public Health journal. “The privatisation of the NHS in England, through the outsourcing of services to for-profit companies, consistently increased [after 2012],” it says.

“Private-sector outsourcing corresponded with significantly increased rates of treatable mortality, potentially as a result of a decline in the quality of healthcare services.”

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Source: The Guardian, 29 June 2022

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NHS private sector plan risks safety and ‘poaches’ staff, doctors warn

Healthcare leaders have been warned by nearly 200 doctors that plans to give more work to private hospitals will “drain” money and staff away from NHS services, leaving the most ill patients at risk.

In a letter seen by The Independent, almost 200 ophthalmologists urged NHS leaders to rethink plans to contract cataract services to private sector hospitals, as to do so “drains money away from patient care into private pockets as well as poaching staff trained in the NHS”. The doctors have called for “urgent action” to stop a new contract from being released, which would allow private sector hospitals to take over more cataract services.

Professor Ben Burton, consultant ophthalmologist and one of the lead signatories of the letter, said, “What is needed is a long-term sustainable solution rather than a knee-jerk reaction which risks the future of ophthalmology as an NHS service. The long-term solution will be achieved by investing in NHS providers to deliver modern, efficient care, and the private sector only used as a last resort.”

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Source: The Independent, 10 February 2023

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NHS pressures having ‘devastating’ impact on dying patients

Patients are dying in hospital without their families because of pressure on NHS services, hospices have told The Independent.

A major care provider has warned that it has seen a “huge shift” in the number of patients referred too late to its services.

The warning comes as NHS England begins a new £32m contract with hospices to help hospitals discharge as many patients as possible this winter.

NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the health service was preparing for an Omicron-driven Covid wave that could be as disruptive as, or even worse than, last winter’s crisis.

Hospices are already dealing with a “huge volume of death and patients needing support”, according to the head of policy at Hospice UK, Dominic Carter.

He told The Independent that hospices had seen a huge shift in the number of patients referred to their services too late, when they are in a “very serious” state of health.

He added: “We don’t really know what kind of support is actually out there for those people, while hospitals have difficulties and deal with challenges around backlogs and Covid. There are lots of people that have been in the community, where hospices are trying to reach them but aren’t always able to identify who needs that care and support.

“They’re really important, those five or six final days, for the individual and their families. Yet this is spent in crisis rather than being helped as much as possible in a comfortable environment by the hospice ... [instead] an ambulance is called, and they’re having to be cast into hospital.”

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Source: The Independent, 26 December 2021

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NHS prescription charges in England to be frozen

NHS prescription charges in England are to be frozen for the first time in 12 years, the government has confirmed.

Single prescription charges, which the Department of Health said would normally rise "in line with inflation", will remain at £9.35 until next year.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said freezing the costs would "put money back in people's pockets".

Faith Angwet, a single mother of two, said she had to choose between paying for prescriptions to treat for her high blood pressure, or using that money to feed her children.

She said the price freeze "won't go far" because "it's not necessarily the outgoings affecting me, everything is going up in price and I'm not able to afford everything I use to be, including my prescription".

Claire Anderson, of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said people who do not qualify for free prescriptions because of their income, age, or medication type, often had to make decisions about which medicines they need.

"Those medicines are prescribed for a reason because that patient needs that treatment," she told the BBC.

And Laura Cockram, chairwoman of the Prescription Charges Coalition, who welcomed the freeze, said the government should review the list of those who qualified for free prescriptions.

She said the prescription exemption charge list was put together more than 50 years ago, when conditions like HIV "didn't even exist" and at a time there "weren't life saving treatments for things like asthma, Parkinson's and MS".

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Source: BBC News, 16 May 2022

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NHS prepares to cancel elective ops in readiness for covid-19 surge

System leaders are telling hospitals to prepare for a potential suspension of all non-emergency elective procedures which could last for months, as they get ready for a surge in coronavirus patients.

Senior sources told HSJ NHS England had asked trusts to risk stratify elective patients in readiness for having to suspend non-emergency work to free up capacity.

HSJ understands trusts have been told to firm up their plans for how they would incrementally reduce and potentially suspend non-emergency operations, while also protecting “life saving” procedures such as cancer treatment.

An announcement is expected soon, with patients affected given at least 48 hours notice. It has not been decided how long it might last for, as the duration of any surge in cases and acute demand is unknown. But HSJ has been told it could stretch out for several months, with three or four months discussed, which would potentially mean tens of or even hundreds of thousands of cancelled operations.

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Source: HSJ, 12 March 2020

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NHS poll shows rising toll of work stress on staff health

The proportion of NHS staff in England who reported feeling unwell as a result of work-related stress increased by nearly 10% last year as the Covid pandemic took its toll, according to the health service’s 2020 survey.

The survey found that 44% reported feeling unwell as a result of work-related stress in the previous 12 months, compared with 40.3% in 2019. The proportion has steadily increased since 2016 (36.8%).

In a year like no other for the health service, the 2020 survey also found a slight reduction in respondents who said they often or always looked forward to going to work, and a bigger fall in those who said they were often or always enthusiastic about their job.

Nevertheless, the survey – which was carried out before Boris Johnson announced plans to give NHS England healthcare workers a 1% pay rise next year, prompting widespread fury – found that the proportion of staff who were thinking of leaving the NHS fell from 19.6% to 18.2%.

In a year in which ethnic minorities were heavily represented in the death toll of healthcare workers, and concerns were raised about being more likely to be pushed into frontline roles and about access to personal protective equipment, the responses relating to equality, diversity and inclusion were not so positive.

The proportion of staff who said their employer provided equal opportunities fell compared with 2019, with a decrease among black and minority ethnic staff from 71.2% to 69.2%.

Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said the overall picture was encouraging in the circumstances, adding: “There are, though, significant areas of concern, and the recent data on the continued poorer experience of ethnic minority staff starkly reminds NHS leaders that staff experience varies unacceptably in their organisations."

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Source: The Guardian, 11 March 2021

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NHS policies to improve care for people taking multiple medicines may not be effective

Current NHS policies designed to improve care for people taking multiple medicines may not be effective, according to new research.  

In England, more than one in seven people take five or more medicines daily, leading to growing concerns over the overuse of medicines – known as polypharmacy – because of potential side effects and patient harms.  

The new study is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and led by the universities of Exeter and Bristol. Published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, it looked at how medication safety in general practice might be improved for people taking lots of medicines. 

Drawing on current NHS policy recommendations, the researchers developed a process involving rigorous reviews of a person’s medicines by a pharmacist and GP, and compared this new method of care with the usual type of care carried out in GP practices.

They found that the enhanced process did not lead to improvements in safe prescribing for patients taking multiple medicines. 

The findings suggest the need to reconsider NHS approaches to improving medication safety for people with complex prescriptions, with researchers calling for future policies to be revised to ensure efficient and effective use of resources. 

Professor Rupert Payne of the University of Exeter, who led the project, said: “This is one of the largest studies of its kind. It adds strong evidence that the strategies being used by the NHS to improve medicines safety need to be reconsidered. We’ve also learned that there are ways we can improve the experience of patients and help GPs and pharmacists to work more effectively together. The NHS should look at how this might be made to happen in practice, as more of the same doesn’t seem to be working.” 

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Source: University of Exeter, 20 October 2025

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NHS plea for private help as covid forces cancer surgery cancellations

NHS leaders are holding fresh talks with private healthcare groups to try to secure surgery for urgent cancer patients in London, as the covid-19 second wave causes hospitals in the capital to make widespread cancellations, HSJ understands.

In recent weeks, pivotal independent sector providers have declined to do the procedures for the payments on offer.

In the spring covid peak, the NHS block-booked private capacity in London, but now only small, spot contracts are in place for this work. Under the previous deal, rules meant low-priority private patients could not be treated ahead of NHS patients who needed surgery urgently.

But now providers can prioritise their private patients as they see fit. HSJ understands NHS England, under pressure from the Treasury, was not willing to pay the prices asked by the three private providers.

As London NHS hospitals continue to fill with covid patients, particularly in critical care, they are able to do few cancer procedures beyond the most urgent category, P1, and are suspending many procedures in the lower categories, including P2, sources said. P2 is defined as patients who need treatment within four weeks.

One senior clinical manager in the city told HSJ on Monday: “Cancellations [are] rife. We have stopped almost all operating in our elective hub apart from P1 [patients assessed as needing surgery within three days].

“The independent sector has not opened up capacity and lifestyle operations [are] still planned [in private hospitals].”

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Source: HSJ, 5 January 2021

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NHS plans: Sunak says expansion means 'more doctors, nurses, and GPs'

The NHS is set to undergo the "largest expansion in training and workforce" in its history, Rishi Sunak has said.

Speaking to the BBC, the prime minister said the plans would reduce "reliance on foreign-trained healthcare professionals".

It comes at a time of record-high waiting lists in the NHS and junior doctors set to stage a five-day strike next month.

The full plans are expected to be published next week.

Pressed about the length of time it would take to see the results of the changes, Mr Sunak accepted it could take "five, ten, fifteen years for these things to come through", but that did not mean it was not the right thing to do.

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Source: BBC News, 25 June 2023

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NHS plans to keep electives at 80% in next covid surge

NHS England has asked hospitals to prepare for a potential further surge of covid cases reaching around half the level of first wave of the virus last year – and to seek to deliver 80% of normal elective activity throughout it, HSJ has learned.

Well-placed sources said NHSE officials have held meetings in recent weeks discussing the possibility of a fourth wave of covid later this year, which modelling suggests could see up to 50% of the patient numbers seen in April last year.

Trusts have been asked by NHSE officials, as part of the planning process, what resources they would need to run at 80 per cent of previous volumes of elective work if this scenario occurred. They are also taking into account that it is likely to come on top of greater non-covid emergency care demand, which has been lower then normal over the past 15 months. 

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Source: HSJ, 21 May 2021

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NHS plans to DNA test all babies to assess disease risk

Every newborn baby in England will have their DNA mapped to assess their risk of hundreds of diseases, under NHS plans for the next 10 years.

The scheme, first reported by the Daily Telegraph, is part of a government drive towards predicting and preventing illness, which will also see £650m invested in DNA research for all patients by 2030.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said gene technology would enable the health service to "leapfrog disease, so we're in front of it rather than reacting to it".

It comes after a study analysing the genetic code of up to 100,000 babies was announced in October.

The government's 10-year plan for the NHS, which is set to be revealed over the coming few weeks, is aimed at easing pressure on services.

The Department for Health and Social Care said that genomics - the study of genes - and AI would be used to "revolutionise prevention" and provide faster diagnoses and an "early warning signal for disease".

Screening newborn babies for rare diseases will involve sequencing their complete DNA using blood samples from their umbilical cord, taken shortly after birth.

There are approximately 7,000 single-gene disorders. The NHS study which began in October only looked for gene disorders that develop in early childhood and for which there are effective treatments.

Currently, newborn babies are offered a heelprick blood test that checks for nine serious conditions, including cystic fibrosis.

The health secretary said in a statement: "With the power of this new technology, patients will be able to receive personalised healthcare to prevent ill-health before symptoms begin, reducing the pressure on NHS services and helping people live longer, healthier lives."

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Source: BBC News, 21 June 2025

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NHS plans review of adult gender services following Cass criticisms

The NHS has set out plans for a review into the safety of adult gender services, in response to detailed concerns raised by the author of the Cass Report on gender care for children and young people.

Dr Hilary Cass, the leading consultant paediatrician, listed 16 separate points of concern about the quality of treatment being offered to adults with gender dysphoria in a strongly worded letter to NHS England.

In response, NHS officials have committed to expediting a review of these services, and announced that clinic inspections would begin in September.

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Source: The Guardian, 15 August 2024

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NHS plans new elective target after April deadline missed

System leaders are discussing pushing back the NHS’s target to virtually eliminate 78-week breaches from the waiting list by this month to ‘June or July’, HSJ understands.

The discussions come after the service missed its original targeted trajectory of clearing the backlog by this month, as first proposed in NHS England’s elective recovery plan last February, despite a steep reduction over the past 18 months.

Internal NHS forecasts suggest there will be around just over 10,000 long waiters still on the waiting list by the end of April, as HSJ first revealed last month. Senior sources said this week that this figure remained a likely position for the end of the month.

HSJ understands there has not been any official communication to trusts about pushing back the 78-week target, and it was not yet clear when the centre’s expectations would be finalised.

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Source: HSJ, 21 April 2023

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NHS planning to start covid vaccination of under 50s by end of January

The NHS’ current plan for the covid vaccine rollout — dependent on the arrival of supplies — would see the whole adult population able to begin receiving it before the end of January, according to leaked documents seen by HSJ.

Under the plan, everyone who wants to would have been vaccinated by early April.

NHS England’s draft COVID-19 vaccine deployment programme, seen by HSJ,  reveals when each cohort is likely to begin receiving it, based on its plans to create huge capacity across GP-run facilities, “large scale mass vaccination sites”, NHS trusts, and “roving models” for those who cannot travel.

It relies on a range of assumptions including that there will be 75% takeup, outside of residential settings like care homes and prisons, where 100% is expected.

The plan also relies on supplies, including more than 7 million doses being available in December. It is not clear what impact a delay to this would have on the rollout. With most doses due to be administered between early January and  mid March — at a rate of 4-5 million every week — a small delay may not make a huge impact to the overall schedule.

The document is dated 13 November and was shared among some senior NHS regional leaders yesterday.

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Source: HSJ, 23 November 2020

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NHS plan: £1bn for hospital beds and ambulance fleet

Thousands of extra hospital beds and hundreds of ambulances will be rolled out in England this year in a bid to tackle the long emergency care delays.

The 5,000 new beds will boost capacity by 5%, while the ambulance fleet will increase by 10% with 800 new vehicles.

Details of the £1bn investment will be set out later in a joint government and NHS England two-year blueprint.

Questions have also been raised about how the extra resources will be staffed - 1 in 10 posts in the NHS is vacant.

The government believes the measures, which will be introduced from April, will help the NHS to start getting closer to its waiting time targets.

It has set goals that by March 2024:

  • 76% of A&E patients will be dealt with in four hours. Currently fewer than 70% are. The official target is 95%
  • An average response time of 30 minutes for emergency calls such as heart attacks and strokes. In December patients waited over 90. The official target is 18.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said cutting NHS waiting times was one of his five main priorities.

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Source: BBC News, 30 January 2023

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NHS pilot uses virtual reality to tackle racism and discrimination among staff

In one scene, a black nurse called Tunde is told by his manager that personal protective equipment (PPE) was being locked away at night to prevent its theft during night shifts, during the pandemic when ethnic minorities were more likely to work these hours.

In another, an Asian female doctor called Jasmine is dismissed by an HR manager after raising a double standard regarding requests for shift changes during the pandemic over childcare, something which her white colleagues were granted.

These are some of the scenarios of discrimination depicted in a new form of training for NHS staff that has been designed to create better understanding of the experiences of colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The training, called “Walking in the shoes of …”, involves participants wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset and watching videos depicting instances of racism and discrimination by actors within an NHS setting.

The clips are based on the transcripts of 133 interviews with NHS employees describing their own experiences of racism while working, collected during the Tides study, a project by academics at Kings’ College London that researches how instances of discrimination within the NHS are related to existing health inequalities.

The training was developed after warnings that the NHS faces a mass exodus of black, Asian and minority ethnic doctors due to “persistent” and “intolerable” levels of racism in the workplace, while research shows that white nurses are twice as likely than their black and Asian colleagues to be promoted.

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Source: Guardian, 22 September 2024

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NHS physician associates should not diagnose untriaged patients, review finds

NHS physician associates should be banned from diagnosing patients who have not already been seen by a doctor, a government review has concluded.

The review calls for the government to overhaul the role of physician associates (PAs), who it says have been substituted in for doctors to fill staffing gaps despite having significantly less training.

Prof Gillian Leng, the president of the Royal Society of Medicine, spoke to more than 1,000 people for the review and concluded there were “no convincing reasons to abolish the roles of AA or PA” but there was also no case “for continuing with the roles unchanged”.

She wrote in the report: “Despite the significantly shorter training, PAs and to a lesser extent AAs have sometimes been used to fill roles designed for doctors. The rationale for doing this is unclear, and was probably one of pragmatism and practicality, relying on medical staff to provide the additional expertise when required.

“This lack of planning may have been responsible for driving the resentment felt by some resident [doctors] and potentially exposed patients to unnecessary risk.”

One of her main recommendations is that PAs should not see “undifferentiated or untriaged patients”, meaning those who have not yet been diagnosed by a doctor. Leng recommended further work to establish which patients they should be able to see and to set clinical protocols that would enable PAs to diagnose patients with mild ailments.

The report found that “relatively few doctors felt it was appropriate for PAs to diagnose illness” and it identified disparities between the tasks PAs considered right for them to carry out and what doctors thought.

Leng recommended that newly qualified PAs work in hospitals for two years before they are allowed to work in GP surgeries or mental health trusts, enabling them to start their careers where there are more training opportunities and supervision.

She also recommended more leadership training for doctors, who shared concerns about the lack of preparation for supervision duties, and better career development for PAs and AAs. She suggested a named doctor supervise each PA, while uniforms, lanyards, badges and staff information should be standardised to “distinguish physician assistants from doctors”.

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Source: The Guardian, 16 July 2025

Related reading on the hub:

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NHS pharmacies to offer blood pressure checks to tackle heart problems

In an effort to tackle heart problems, a new NHS scheme will be rolled out in pharmacies where patients over 40 will be able to have their blood pressure checked. 

The scheme, set to begin checks from October in some 11,300 pharmacies across England, will also give patients clinical and lifestyle advice or referred to treatment where necessary when getting their blood pressure checked. 

Helen Williams, national speciality adviser for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at NHS England and NHS Improvement, said: “As a pharmacist, I am delighted that this service is being rolled out across England. Community pharmacies are ideally placed to deliver blood pressure checks, being accessible within local communities and regularly used by most adults. This service will enable people with high blood pressure to be identified and treated early and will encourage conversations about lifestyle change to help people live healthy lives for longer.”

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Source: The Independent, 24 August 2021

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NHS People Plan 2020/21 response by The Health Foundation

NHS People Plan provides a stop-gap but leaves glaring omissions

'Two years after it was first promised, the NHS is still waiting for a long-term workforce plan. Some of the measures announced in today’s People Plan are positive. As the plan acknowledges, it is important to learn from the impressive changes made by NHS staff during the pandemic. And improving support for people from black and minority ethnic communities – who make up one fifth of the NHS workforce – is rightly a top priority. 

'But there are glaring omissions. The NHS went into the pandemic with a workforce gap of around 100,000 staff, yet the plan does not say how this will be addressed in the medium term. This is particularly concerning at a time when our recruitment of nurses from abroad has dropped dramatically. These details are missing because the NHS is still waiting on government to set out what funding will be available to expand the NHS workforce – without which the NHS cannot recruit and retain the doctors, nurses and other staff it needs. 

'While this plan at least provides a stop-gap to help get the NHS through the winter, there is no equivalent plan for social care – a sector suffering from decades of political neglect and the devastating impact of COVID-19 on care users and staff. A comprehensive workforce plan for both the NHS and social care is needed now more than ever'.

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