‘Irrelevant’ training will stop next year, vows 10-Year Plan

The government’s 10-Year Health Plan has vowed to stop “repetitive” and “irrelevant” training that takes up NHS staff time.

The document said: “Our first step will be to reverse the accumulation of centrally dictated training requirements, which irritate staff and add unnecessary burdens to their working day.

“It is often repetitive, irrelevant to the work that staff do and has little or no impact on the quality of care that patients receive. By April 2026, we will have completely reformed mandatory training.

“As we transform the centre and push power out to staff and citizens, we will work with providers and professionals to identify more opportunities to ease the burden on frontline workers, remove central edicts, and allow a more flexible approach to workforce development.”

The plan also commits to using technology to increase clinical capacity, including through UK-registered health professionals working abroad to provide remote services to NHS patients.

NHS England has estimated that unnecessary mandatory training is wasting more than 100,000 days of staff time every year.

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Source: HSJ, 3 July 2025