Speak to clinicians, leaders or staff anywhere in the NHS and the one thing everyone will agree is that in the medium to long term, the workforce shortage is the greatest challenge facing the health and care sector in the UK today. The reasons behind it are many and varied but a long-standing and consistent failure to plan the workforce is undoubtedly one of them. As we look to the future, it is critical to recognise, and address, the underlying causes of this failure, or their impact will be amplified by recent events, severely limiting the quality, access and level of care we can provide.
The NHS People Plan, published earlier this year, sees a much greater role for systems in workforce planning in future. At present however, many if not all, know little about the true number of staff they need, the skill mix required, and importantly, have no reliable means of modelling this. Of-course, data collection, analysis and planning is undertaken by Trusts, Systems, Health Education England, NHS England, NHS Improvement and Skills for Care; which help to describe the future requirement for staff, but our experience suggests these don’t reflect real need, are over-simplistic and not dynamic.
Read the full insight on the KPMG website