NHS Staffing

There has been a lot of debate in the comments section of this blog on NHS staffing.

I was on record long before anyone had heard of Coronavirus as saying that we don't have enough doctors and nurses in this country because for thirty years we have not been training enough medical professionals in this country.

And I will take no lectures on the shortage of doctors in the NHS from any of those who, when the government finally at long, long, last did something about this in 2016 and announced five new medical schools and a 25% increase in doctor training places, attacked that increase because they misinterpreted it as a means of sending foreign doctors home in response to the Brexit vote.

That increase is, unfortunately, going to take decades to work through, and almost certainly isn't enough: it takes a long time to go from being a first year medical student to becoming a consultant. We can only ramp up the scale of medical education in a country so fast, but we have more to do. So nothing in any of the statistics I have quoted below should be taken as suggesting that I think we have enough doctors and nurses yet, or that we can afford to be complacent on the subject.

On the other hand, I think it is important to give credit where credit is due and not to get into the sort of cycle of self-reinforcing pessimism and negativity which will make it even harder to build up our health service. Because although they have much further to go, medical staff numbers in the NHS are moving in the right direction. 

New NHS workforce statistics show that, over the last year, the number of nurses in the NHS has increased by 9,398 and the number of doctors has risen by 5,188 – and we pay tribute to each and every NHS staff member and their commitment to caring for the British people and saving lives. 
  • In addition to this, as part of the ‘Your NHS Needs You’ recruitment drive, 15,266 former professionals in England have so far come forward to help the NHS tackle coronavirus and will start being deployed from this weekend.
  • From next week 5,750 final year medics and 17,000 final year nursing students in England will also be asked to consider moving into frontline placements, with appropriate support.
  • This means in total over 38,000 more people will join the NHS in the coming weeks, alongside over 560,000 volunteers who have signed up as part of the new NHS volunteer army helping vulnerable people stay safe and well at home.
  • Our NHS is facing an unprecedented challenge and we pay tribute to each and every one of them helping battle this virus. The entire country is grateful but we must help them too. That’s why the government is asking everyone to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives.

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