Government must acknowledge scale of workforce problems

NHS leaders have called on the government to publicly recognise the scale of the NHS' current workforce problems as the first step to solving them.

As trust leaders prepare for what is already becoming the most difficult winter in NHS history, workforce issues are now, by far, trusts' biggest problem.

Trust leaders point to six different workforce challenges currently being faced across the health and care system. These include: difficulties in recruitment with nearly 100,000 NHS vacancies; growing numbers of staff choosing to retire early or return to their countries of origin; increasing levels of sickness absence due to the consistent, high, level of pressure staff are under; and difficulty in securing staff to work bank and agency shifts on which the NHS has become worryingly reliant.

Some trusts are reporting that they are now having to close wards due to absence of staff, rather than risk patient safety. This is deeply worrying as the NHS heads into winter when the service needs as much capacity as possible.

Trust leaders also fear that if the push for mandatory vaccination is mishandled, potential further loss of additional frontline staff could jeopardise the safety and viability of 'pockets' of vital services.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: "The single biggest message we are hearing from NHS staff is that they want the government to acknowledge the scale of workforce problems and to show how this level of pressure on them will not become the new normal. Staff have been working flat out since before Covid-19 and we are asking them, once more, to 'make an extraordinary effort this winter'. Staff will, of course, provide that extra effort. But they need to see a clear plan for how they get to a reasonable workload on a sustainable basis.

"The scale of the NHS' workforce problems are plain for all to see. Nearly 100,000 NHS staff vacancies. £6 billion annual spend on temporary staff to fill these gaps. 55 per cent of staff working unpaid extra hours each week. 44 per cent saying they've felt ill with work related stress in the last year. All that frontline staff currently hear from government is constant repetition of the fact that there are record numbers of doctors and nurses in the NHS and that current pressures are sustainable.

"Thanks to the extraordinary effort of NHS frontline staff, the NHS won't break or fall over this winter. While the NHS does have more doctors and nurses than ever, growth in the NHS workforce has consistently failed to keep up with rising demand for care. This level of pressure on our workforce is totally unsustainable and it cannot go on much longer. It's now risking patient safety, quality of care and staff health and wellbeing. We can't keep trying to cover the mismatch between NHS capacity and demand for care by asking our staff to work harder and harder.

"Trust leaders therefore want the government to publicly acknowledge the scale of these problems. They recognise their role in solving them – it is as much their responsibility as it is government's to make the NHS a great place to work.”