The Government’s long-awaited NHS workforce plan appears to have been delayed as rumours circulate that it is too expensive.
According to deputy chief executive of NHS Providers Saffron Cordery, the plan, which was expected for publication imminently, has been delayed further.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Cordery said the plan will require ‘a very significant commitment of funding’ from the Government.
Health secretary Steve Barclay also declined to provide a deadline for publication during interviews over the weekend, according to The Guardian.
The workforce plan, which has already been delayed from last year, is expected to put forward solutions to address NHS understaffing, including expanding medical school places and potentially training apprentice doctors directly on the job.
Ms Cordery said: ‘We know that when it comes, it will be a very significant commitment of funding from the government because what we’re talking about is setting out the number of training places and the number of staff that the NHS needs over the next decade or so.’
Of the delay, she added: ‘What everyone has been calling for, and what Jeremy Hunt committed to in his autumn statement last year and indeed talked about in the spring budget, was a fully funded and fully articulated workforce plan for the NHS.
‘So I think that we are talking about something to do with the funding of this plan.’
The Times has also reported that disagreements over cost, which is believed to be in the tens of billions, have delayed publication of the plan.
A senior NHS source was quoted by the newspaper as saying that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt ‘can’t agree the financial commitment’ and that it ‘was all set to go this week and now the PM wants to run through it in detail’.
In March, reports of the plan revealed it would highlight that the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs and that number could balloon to 571,000 staff by 2036 on current trends.
The leaked report also said that without ‘radical action’, the NHS in England will have 28,000 fewer GPs, 44,000 fewer community nurses and an even greater lack of paramedics within 15 years.
The Government’s recent primary care recovery plan included pledges to encourage departed GPs to return to the profession by promoting ‘flexible roles’ and by replacing the current assessment structure with a personalised pathway.
READERS' COMMENTS [11]
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Strike???———and the band played ”believe it if you like”
Well said. Anxiety and depression indeed. No beginning or end. I tell them they can work maximum 16 hours without loosing benefit and see how they feel. Reassure it will not problem for future sick note if it does not workout.. some try it others would not budge.
Every position they don’t fill for another year represents another year’s savings of operational costs.
Much quicker and cheaper to massage figures by redefining GP trainees as GPs, and to stop talking about GPs and instead talk about ‘patient-facing staff’.
A conspiracy to understaff perhaps?
It would not be so expensive now if they had continued to monitor needs and adjust training places over the last 18 years, instead of leaving it to ‘market forces’ because most hospitals just assumed they could continue to buy in staff at supermarket prices without arranging for training places and suchlike!
It is now like a transfusion without tying off the bleeder…..sorry no transfusion. Just let it bleed.
Does anyone really care what they have to say? This government is just running down the clock. Irrelevant. Time to go.
Leave a mess Tories, 13 years of austerity and Brexit an what do you have an omnishambles.
Even Charlie from Casualty is now retiring … another sign of the current NHS ennui and malaise
Time to put the NHS out of it’s misery.
The longer it’s left the more expensive it gets.
A FREIND OF MINE HAS GONE UP TO HEATHROW TODAY TO COLLECT AN EGYPTIAN DOCTOR AND BRING HIM BACK TO WEST WALES.
HE IS APPARENTLY COMING HERE TO WORK.
FANCY SWAPPING A VIEW OF THE PYRAMIDS FOR A VIEW OF PRIORY STREET CHIP SHOP !!
THINGS MUST BE EVEN WORSE THERE…………OR, HE’S BEING PAID AN ABSOLUTE FORTUNE !!
p.s. sorry caps lock stuck on !