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Found 210 results
  1. News Article
    The chief nursing officer for England has spoken about the ongoing shortages of nurses across the country and how the government’s previous pledge for 50,000 more nurses is now “not enough”. At one of her first in-person speeches since the start of the pandemic, Ruth May also revealed that she thought the removal of the student nurse bursary in England was “fundamentally the wrong decision”. Ms May was speaking at an event organised by the League of St Bartholomew’s Nurses in honour of pioneering nurse Pam Hibbs, who died following a Covid-19 infection last year. During her keynote address, Ms May said workforce remained a “big focus” for her team due to the “shortage” of nursing staff nationally. She said work to address the gaps was centred on the three areas of international recruitment, domestic training, and retention. She said numbers of nurses being recruited from overseas annually had risen from around 5,000 to 6,000 before the pandemic, to an expected 20,000 in this financial year. “I’m very, very glad that the NHS has had a diverse workforce from its very inception. We have welcomed colleagues from across all countries of the world, and we will continue to do that,” Ms May said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Nursing Times, 22 March 2022
  2. News Article
    The highest ever number of medical students have been told there are no places for them this year, despite the health service’s crippling shortage of medics. The risk that young would-be doctors may not be allocated to start their training at a hospital in the UK has sparked concern among the medical students affected, as well as medical organisations. Pressure is growing for action to close the gap between the number of training places available across the NHS and the number of graduates seeking one, so medical talent is not wasted and hospitals hire as many fresh recruits as they can to help tackle the widespread lack of medics. Doctors are worried that the mismatch between demand for and supply of training places will lead to the NHS missing out on medics it sorely needs and that some of those denied a place will either go to work abroad instead or give up medicine altogether. The most recent official figures showed that the NHS in England is short of almost 8,200 doctors. Dr Dustyn Saint, a GP in Norfolk, tweeted the health secretary, Sajid Javid, about the situation, saying: “Sajid Javid sort this out! You know how much general practice needs these people in a few years, standing by and doing nothing is inexcusable.” Another doctor said: “It’s bonkers that 800 would-be doctors could be denied training places at a time when the NHS in England is short of 8,200 doctors.” The British Medical Association has voiced concern about the large number of unallocated medics. “Now we have a situation where a record number are left with unnecessary uncertainty about where they are headed this August,” said Khadija Meghrawi, the co-chair of its medical students committee. “In a time where student mental health is declining, this additional source of uncertainty and stress is particularly unfair.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 March 2022
  3. News Article
    The NHS is facing a deepening staffing crisis, with the number of unfilled posts across health services in England rising to 110,192, official figures show. The shortages include 39,652 nurses and 8,158 doctors, according to the latest quarterly data for health service vacancies published by NHS Digital. The disclosure prompted warnings that the shortage of frontline personnel would lead to longer delays, hit the campaign to cut the 6.1m treatment backlog and undermine quality of care. Staff groups said they feared that low pay, burnout from heavy workloads and constant pressure during shifts, compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, were leading demoralised workers to quit. “The fact that nursing vacancies remain stubbornly high, at about 40,000 in the NHS in England, is deeply worrying. With every job that remains unfilled, safe patient care becomes even harder to maintain”, said Patricia Marquis, the Royal College of Nursing’s director for England. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “The Conservatives’ scrapping of the nursing bursary and failure to fix staffing shortages has been disastrous for the NHS, and patients are paying the price. NHS staff do heroic work but there simply aren’t enough of them. Yet the government still has no plan to fill these positions, meaning patients will continue to wait unacceptable lengths of time for treatment.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2022
  4. News Article
    The NHS is “flying blind” and “woefully unprepared” to cope with England’s rapidly ageing population, senior doctors have warned as stark new figures reveal the country has only one full-time geriatrician to care for every 8,000 older people. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said the drastic shortage of specially trained physicians to look after the rising number of elderly people and a lack of NHS workforce planning meant England was “sleepwalking into an avoidable crisis of care for older people”. Its analysis of NHS and Office for National Statistics data shows there is just one full-time geriatrician for every 8,031 people over the age of 65 in England. There are also regional disparities, with one geriatrician caring for more than 12,500 over-65s in the east Midlands, while the figure in north-east and central London is one per 3,254. Estimates suggest that by 2040 there could be as many as 17 million over-65s. But the college warns that many doctors will soon be requiring geriatric care themselves as 48% of consultant geriatricians are due to retire within the next decade. The RCP said the health service was short of staff across all specialities and the shortage of geriatricians was one example of why the health service needed more workforce planning. It said there was no publicly available data on the number of staff the NHS needed to train now to meet future demand for care. Dr Jennifer Burns, the president of the British Geriatrics Society, said the crisis would only worsen with the “predictable rise” in the numbers of older people across the country. “It is absolutely vital that these fundamental issues around the recruitment, retention, development and support of the workforce are addressed, and that there is a properly resourced strategy for future needs,” she said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 March 2022
  5. News Article
    The NHS is facing a “time bomb” and will be forced to cancel or delay around 8 million operations each year by 2040, due to a lack of consultant anaesthetists across the services. The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCOA) said the current shortage of at least 1,400 staff across the UK means millions operations will not be able to take place. The college has warned its speciality is facing a “perfect storm” of limited training places, poor retention and an ageing workforce with 39 per cent nearing retirement age. The analysis found as demand for surgeries continue the need for anaesthetists is due to increase by 3.85 per year, meaning the NHS will need around 25,000 doctors in these posts by 2040. Dr Fiona Donald, president of the RCOA said: “The NHS is facing an anaesthetic workforce time bomb. We already have profound workforce shortages that are preventing huge numbers of operations from taking place – and unless urgent action is taken, the problem is going to worsen. “We would welcome government funding for additional anaesthetic training posts. One hundred additional posts per year would start to plug the gap and help get the UK back on a sound footing to be able to address the waiting list backlog. Without this investment, we foresee impacts to patient care and a further impact on the mental health of our current workforce – they need to be able to prioritise their own health and that of their families alongside the focus they already place on the health of patients and the public.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 February 2022
  6. News Article
    Ambulance services in England have experienced a mass exodus of staff in the past year with nearly 7,000 leaving their jobs, figures have revealed. The number of emergency service crew leavers has risen sharply compared with 2019 levels, prompting concern for patient safety during the next NHS winter crisis. The government has been called on to launch an urgent recruitment drive before winter to cover the 2,954 vacancies across all ambulance services in England. Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrats' health and social care spokesperson, said: “With patients struggling to see a GP at the front door of the NHS and unable to access social care at the back door of the NHS, ambulance crews are unfairly caught between a rock and a hard place, picking up the slack from a health and care system that is broken at both ends. “Patients who struggle to access the care they need, when they need it, are then left waiting for emergency assistance in pain and distress for an ambulance. The shortage of NHS staff has caused untold pain for millions of people across the country, especially those left to wait for hours in pain for an ambulance to arrive. “The government must begin an urgent recruitment drive before winter begins and our ambulance services are yet again put under unsustainable strain. There is no time to waste.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 August 2023
  7. News Article
    NHS England could have gone further to insist that errors and failures by senior NHS leaders are disclosed to future employers, according to the leading barrister who reviewed the NHS’s fit and proper person test (FPPT). Tom Kark KC’s review of the FPPT was delivered to government five years ago and made public the following year, and changes were finally proposed by NHSE earlier this month. In an interview with HSJ, Mr Kark said he broadly welcomed the plans, and that the revised framework should provide greater consistency across NHS boards “if applied correctly”; and could “strengthen the hand” of chairs and chief executives. Part of the purpose of the regime is to prevent senior managers and other board members who make big errors in one role, from keeping this secret from a future employer. Mr Kark told HSJ he had heard evidence that when “someone leaves under a cloud, they pop up somewhere else, and the information is lost.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 August 2023
  8. News Article
    Racism is “a stain on the NHS” and tackling it is key to recruiting and retaining staff, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) will warn. The health service has a moral, ethical and legal duty to do more to stamp out racism, Dr Adrian James is expected to say at the college’s international congress in Liverpool. He will cite pay gaps, disparities in disciplinary processes and a “glass ceiling” for doctors from minority ethnic backgrounds who want to progress into management positions as problems in the NHS that are linked to racism. Last month, the NHS Race and Health Observatory, which was formed in 2021 to examine disparities in health and social care based on race, said better anti-racism policies could strengthen the NHS workforce. The RCP agreed that “better care, training and anti-racist policies” would increase staff numbers in the NHS, and that this would “improve patient experience and save millions of pounds spent annually on addressing racism claims brought by staff, clinicians and patients”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 10 July 2023
  9. News Article
    Healthcare staff from the European Union can join or continue to work in the NHS for the next five years without undergoing additional exams or further assessments, the government has decided. The “standstill provisions”, which were put in place after the UK left the European Union in 2020, have been extended by government until 2028. The NHS has become increasingly reliant on recruiting staff from overseas, particularly nurses, but has seen a significant drop in the number of staff joining from the European Union post-Brexit. The review by the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Retaining the standstill provisions for a temporary period of five years will support the [DHSC’s] ambition to attract and recruit overseas healthcare professionals, without introducing complex and burdensome registration routes. “[European Economic Area]-qualified healthcare professionals will be able to continue to register with the relevant professional regulator, without the need to sit additional professional exams, mitigating delays to registration and employment in the NHS.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 29 June 2023
  10. News Article
    Thousands more doctors and nurses will be trained in England every year as part of a government push to plug the huge workforce gaps that plague almost all NHS services. The number of places in medical schools will rise from 7,500 to 10,000 by 2028 and could reach 15,000 by 2031 as a result of the NHS’s first long-term workforce plan. There will also be a big expansion in training places for those who want to become nurses, with the number rising by a third to 40,000 by 2028 – matching the number of nurses the health service currently lacks. Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, hailed the long-awaited plan as “a once in a generation opportunity to put staffing on a sustainable footing for years to come”. Medical groups, health experts and organisations representing NHS staff welcomed the plan as ambitious but overdue. Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund thinktank, said it could be a “landmark moment” for the health service by providing it with the staff it needs to provide proper care. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 June 2023
  11. News Article
    The UK risks becoming highly reliant on overseas care workers after nearly 58,000 visas were issued for the sector last year, a report says. Analysis by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford found that the demand for foreign staff had left the NHS and care homes open to “vulnerabilities” including “exposure to international competition for health workers and risks of exploitation”. The study, commissioned by the employment group ReWAGE, also examined where care workers were coming from. In 2022, 99% of care workers sponsored for work visas in the UK were from non-EU countries. The top countries were India (33%), Zimbabwe (16%), Nigeria (15%) and the Philippines (11%). Dr Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory, said: “Health and care employers have benefited a lot from international recruitment. “But relying this much on overseas recruits also brings risks. For example, care workers on temporary visas are vulnerable to exploitation and the rapid growth in overseas recruitments makes monitoring pay and conditions a real challenge.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 June 2023
  12. News Article
    Unfilled specialised medical consultant roles and an over-reliance on overworked, internationally trained graduates for non-consultant hospital doctors are among key risks to patient safety identified by the Irish Medical Council. The council, which is the regulatory body for the medical profession, sets out the risks to healthcare for the first time in its workforce intelligence report that breaks down the make-up of the medical register and explains why doctors are leaving the health system. More than a third of all clinically active doctors are on the general register, which is a key risk to patient safety because consultant and specialist roles are not being filled and “a considerable proportion” of non-consultant hospital doctors are required to perform the duties of consultants. The report found that the majority of non-consultant hospital doctors are trained overseas and that the health system overly relied on these doctors who reported being “overworked, undervalued, experiencing discrimination and unable to access specialist training.” “Aside from the individual impact on the doctors, the treatment of international medical graduates has serious implications for patient safety,” the council said. In another risk identified by the regulatory body, more than a quarter of doctors reported working more than 48 hours a week, in breach of the European Working Time Directive. This has further serious implications for patient safety,” the council said. Read full story Source: Irish Times, 1 September 2022
  13. News Article
    Ministers will introduce legislation as soon as parliament returns on Monday to tackle the NHS’s worsening staffing crisis by making it easier for overseas nurses and dentists to work in the UK. The move is part of a drive by the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to increase overseas recruitment to help plug workforce gaps in health and social care. Barclay believes thousands of extra health professionals will come as a result of new rules making it easier for medical regulators to register those who have qualified abroad. If the change proves successful it will help pave the way for more nurses and dentists coming to work in Britain from countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, the Philippines and Malaysia. However, critics claim the policy is a stop-gap that is no substitute for ramping up the supply of homegrown staff and risks worsening the lack of health workers in other countries that are struggling with shortages of their own. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 5 September 2022
  14. News Article
    The number of posts lying vacant across the NHS in England has reached a “staggering” record high of 132,139 – almost 10% of its planned workforce. The number at the end of June was up sharply from three months earlier when there were 105,855 vacancies, quarterly personnel figures show. NHS leaders said the huge number of empty posts showed why the health service is in a state of deepening crisis, with patients facing long waits for almost every type of care. The previous highest number of vacancies for full-time-equivalent staff was 111,864, recorded at the end of June 2019. The new number represents 9.7% of the NHS’s planned staffing levels – a new high. As recently as March 2021 there were 76,082 vacancies. Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “These figures paint a bleak picture. A jump in nearly 30,000 staff vacancies – equivalent to the entire staffing of a large NHS hospital – show an alarming trend across the NHS of rising levels of vacancies.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2022
  15. News Article
    Questions are being asked why the government is sticking to its cap on medical and dentistry places. A shortage of doctors and other medical staff has been described as the biggest challenge facing the NHS. But the number of places at UK medical schools are capped - in England this year there are 7,500 places. England's Education Secretary James Cleverly told the BBC that you can't just "flick a switch" to increase the capacity to train more doctors. Medicine is one of a handful of courses where numbers are limited by the government, because the cost is heavily subsidised. In 2020 and 2021 the government lifted the cap on numbers, which last year led to more than 10,000 places being accepted. But this year the cap in England is being reintroduced. Mr Cleverly told the BBC that the nature of highly technical, vocational courses like medicine meant increasing the number of places was far from straightforward. "To increase those numbers you would also need to increase the capacity in training institutions, both in universities and in hospitals. "It is not something you can just flick a switch and significantly increase the capacity to train. "The increases have got to be funded, they are technical and expensive courses and we need to understand the balance of requirements between these courses and other courses that the government is supporting financially." Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 August 2022
  16. News Article
    The number of midwives has fallen in every English region in the past year, figures show. Numbers dropped by around 600 on top of a longstanding shortage of more than 2000 midwives, according to analysis of NHS Digital data by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). The RCM said more investment is needed in maternity services to ensure the safety and quality of care, as "even the smallest falls are putting increasing pressures on services already struggling with shortages, worsened by the pandemic". Dr Suzanne Tyler of the RCM said midwife numbers had "fallen significantly over the past year on top of already serious shortages" in England. Dr Tyler said: "The falls across the regions are compounding the difficulties employers are facing to recruit and keep their midwives. "We are raising these issues because we want women to get the best possible care and midwives to not only stay in the profession, but to encourage others to become one. "These figures must shock this moribund Government into action for the sake of women, babies, their families and staff." Read full story Source: Medscape, 16 August 2022
  17. News Article
    The NHS in England is increasingly reliant on doctors and nurses recruited from outside the UK and EU, analysis has found. Some 34% of doctors joining the health service last year came from overseas, a rise from 18% in 2014. The government said overseas recruitment had always been part of its strategy, but unions have warned it is an unsustainable way of recruiting in the long-term. Patricia Marquis, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) director for England, said ministers must do more to reduce the "disproportionate reliance" on international recruits. The government is funding an additional 1,500 undergraduate medical school places each year for domestic students in England - a 25% increase over three years. However, last week a report by MPs concluded the large number of unfilled NHS job vacancies, about 110,000 in total, was posing a serious risk to patient safety. Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said it was "high time for the government to commit to a fully-funded, long-term workforce plan for the NHS" to tackle "chronic workforce shortages". Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 August 2022
  18. News Article
    Midwife numbers are reaching a dangerous level which could put lives at risk, as records show more staff leaving than joining the profession for the first time in a decade. As a record number suffer burnout and leave, the figures from NHS Digital for 2021/22 show almost 300 more staff abandoned midwifery than joined the service, with 3,440 leaving and only 3,144 coming in. Analysis of the data showed a record 551 resigned in 2021 because of a lack of work-life balance. Midwives working in NHS trust maternity units typically work 12-hour shifts, but many work longer for no additional pay to cover staff shortages and to keep services running. The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) says members are "at the end of their tether' and 'physically and emotionally burnt out" Joeli Brearley, chief executive of campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed, said: "We don't have enough midwives, and those we do have are underpaid, undervalued and overworked." "This is a problem that has been communicated to the Government repeatedly for years. It is putting the lives of women and their babies in danger and causing untold damage to their mental and physical health. The Government needs to get a grip of the situation urgently before there are more tragedies." Read full story Source: Daily Mail, 1 August 2022 .
  19. News Article
    The large number of unfilled NHS job vacancies is posing a serious risk to patient safety, a report by MPs says. It found England is now short of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives, calling this the worst workforce crisis in NHS history. It said a reluctance to decisively plug the staffing gap could threaten plans to tackle the Covid treatment backlog. The government said the workforce is growing and NHS England is drawing up long-term plans to recruit more staff. Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the Commons health and social care select committee that produced the report, said tackling the shortage must be a "top priority" for the new prime minister when they take over in September. "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," he said. It said conditions were "regrettably worse" in social care, with 95% of care providers struggling to hire staff and 75% finding it difficult to retain existing workers. "Without the creation of meaningful professional development structures, and better contracts with improved pay and training, social care will remain a career of limited attraction, even when it is desperately needed," the report said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 July 2022
  20. News Article
    The shortage of GPs in England is set to become worse, with more than one in four posts predicted to be vacant within a decade, an analysis suggests. The Health Foundation study said the current 4,200 shortfall could rise to more than 10,000 by 2030-31. The think tank believes the government will struggle to increase the number of GPs, while demand will continue to rise - creating a bigger shortfall. The government has promised to recruit 6,000 extra GPs by 2024, but ministers have admitted they are struggling to achieve that. The analysis said the numbers entering the profession are on the rise, but this will be offset by GPs retiring or moving towards part-time working, according to current trends. The worst-case scenarios suggested more than half of GP posts could even be vacant. Anita Charlesworth, director of research at the Health Foundation, said: "It's sobering that over the next decade things are set to get worse, not better." "It's critical that government takes action to protect general practice and avoid it getting locked in a vicious cycle of rising workload driving staff to leave, in turn creating more pressure on remaining staff and fuelling even more departures." Prof Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said the predictions were "bleak" and the worst-case scenario would be a "disaster". "Our members have told us they lack the time to deliver the care that they want to deliver for patients - and that patients need," he said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 June 2022
  21. News Article
    Vulnerable patients cared for in secure mental health units across England could miss out on vital medications due to a shortage of learning disability nurses, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) has warned. The report into medication omissions in learning disability secure units across the country highlights problems with retaining learning disability nurses, with the number recruited each year matching those leaving. Figures quoted in the report suggest the number of learning disability nurses in the NHS nearly halved from 5,500 in 2016 to 3,000 in 2020. The HSIB launched a national investigation after being alerted to the case of Luke, who spent time in NHS secure learning disability units but was not administered prescribed medication for diabetes and high cholesterol on several occasions. At Luke’s facility, which included low and medium secure wards, HSIB investigators considered that the quality and style of care provided to patients had been directly impacted by a lack of nurses with required skill sets. Findings from HSIB’s wider national investigation link a shortfall of learning disability nurses to instances of patients missing their medication, with the report’s authors describing a “system in which medicines omissions were too common and prevention, identification and escalation processes were not robust”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 June 2022
  22. News Article
    The NHS is facing a major exodus of doctors of ethnic minority backgrounds due to persistent levels of racism faced at a personal and institutional level, a ground breaking study has revealed. Nearly one third of doctors surveyed have considered leaving the NHS or have already left within the past two years due to race discrimination, with 42 per cent of Black and 41 per cent Asian doctors in particular having considered leaving or having left. The survey paints a picture of institutional barriers to career progression, dangerously low levels of reporting of racist incidents and a growing mental health burden on ethnic minority doctors. With more than 2,000 responses from doctors and medical students across the UK, the BMA – a professional association representing all doctors in the UK – believes that this survey is one of the largest of its kind to document the experience of racism in the medical profession and workplace. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA chair of council, said: “The NHS was built on the principle of equality of care for patients whoever they are, but this report shows that the NHS is shamefully failing in this principle for its own doctors, with those from ethnic minorities reporting alarming levels of unfair treatment and racial inequality at work. Read full story Source: The Independent, 15 June 2022
  23. News Article
    A criticised maternity service needs 37 more midwives, about a fifth of its total midwifery workforce. The Care Quality Commission has said Northampton General Hospital did not always have enough qualified and experienced staff to keep women safe from avoidable harm. Figures obtained by the BBC show that 49 serious incidents have occurred in its maternity services in four years. The hospital said it had undertaken "a lot of work" in the past 18 months and a recruitment process was under way. According to a Freedom of Information Act response, between November 2018 and November 2022, the hospital had 278 serious incidents, with the highest level coming across maternity services, including gynaecology and obstetrics. There are currently 37 vacancies for midwives but the trust said it manages staffing levels "closely and ensure that all shifts are covered by bank or midwives working altered shift patterns, to ensure that we are able to provide a safe maternity experience". Read full story Source: BBC News, 27 February 2023
  24. News Article
    Britain could double the number of doctors and nurses it trains under NHS plans to tackle a deepening staffing crisis, according to reports. The proposal to increase the number of places in UK medical schools from 7,500 to 15,000 is contained in a draft of NHS England’s long-awaited workforce plan, which is expected to be published next month. Labour has already announced this policy as a key element of its plans to revive the NHS. However, it could face opposition from the Treasury because of how much it would cost, according to the Times, which reported on the plan. The NHS in England alone is short of 133,000 staff – equating to about a tenth of its workforce – including 47,000 nurses and 9,000 doctors, according to the most recent official figures. There are also shortages of midwives, paramedics and operating theatre staff. Staff groups say routine gaps in NHS care providers’ rotas are endangering patients’ safety, increasing workload and costing the service money. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 22 February 2023
  25. News Article
    White applicants remain 54% more likely to be appointed from NHS job shortlistings compared to ethnic minority candidates, a metric that has hardly budged since 2016, a NHS England report has revealed. The 2022 NHS workforce race equality standard report, revealed a significant rise in the proportion of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds. And while there had been progress on some key targets since last year, others have stagnated. NHSE’s report showed ethnic minority staff comprise 24.2% of the workforce in 2022, up from 22.4% last year and from 17.7% six years ago. However, it also revealed the likelihood of white applicants being appointed from shortlists was 1.54 in 2022 than minority ethnic applicants – only a very small improvement on 1.57 in 2016, when WRES began Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 February 2023
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