The quality and performance of services will suffer if medical training is not ‘prioritised and funded’ by trusts, Health Education England (HEE) has warned.
HEE has set out actions in its “Covid training recovery interim report” that must be done alongside NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care and others to protect post-covid workforce recovery.
At the beginning of the pandemic, junior doctors’ training was severely disrupted because thousands of staff were redeployed to covid wards, while most routine elective operations and diagnostic procedures were stopped.
HEE says training has still not returned to pre-covid levels, and fears there could be further disruptions over winter if significant volumes of elective care are cancelled.
According to its report, if medical training is not “prioritised and funded”, the “long-term costs to service are significantly greater”.
“If delivery recovery is prioritised over training recovery there will be an initial increase in service delivery time and value, but this will be followed swiftly by a reduction in service delivery time and value,” it warned.
Source: HSJ, 13 October 2021
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