Mail Online

Health chiefs warn of 570,000 NHS staff shortage

By John Ely

ENGLAND will be short of 570,000 NHS staff by 2036 without a huge boost in homegrown recruitment, health chiefs have warned.

The NHS has around 150,000 vacancies, but this shortfall will rise over the next decade if current recruitment trends are continued against the needs of a growing and ageing population.

A leaked version of the NHS’s long-awaited workforce plan warns the shortfall could treble without bolstering the workforce. The document says that without radical action, England will have 8,000 fewer GPs, 44,000 fewer community nurses, and an even greater lack of paramedics, according to The Guardian.

The document also states the NHS is running with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs – 30,000 more than official figures – and calls for the UK to end its over-reliance on recruiting overseas staff and agency workers.

It recommends a massive boost in funded training, including doubling medical school places to 15,000. The number of trainee GPs needs to rise from 4,000 to 6,000, and nurses trained every year from 29,865 to 52,722. The plan says that ‘without intervention... the shortfall will grow to 571,000 full-time equivalents by 2036/37’ – that means boosting NHS England’s workforce by 37 per cent.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay is understood to be supportive of the plan’s ambition, but Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is said to be balking at the cost and wants to water down NHS England’s proposals to boost staff training.

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2023-03-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

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