The UK government is set to recruit over 300,000 new doctors and nurses in the largest single expansion in National Health Service (NHS) history, as part of a series of plans to improve the health service.
The Prime Minister unveiled the 15-year long-awaited plan to recruit record numbers of doctors alongside its £2.4bn investment, at Downing, The National News UK reported on Friday.
The strategy estimates the recruitment of a potential 60,000 extra doctors, 170,000 more nurses and 71,000 health professionals by 2036/37.
It also promises to create a “renewed focus on retention” in the health workforce, while also preparing for future challenges created by a growing and ageing population.
It comes after warnings from health leaders in recent years that there could be 360,000 vacancy gaps in the NHS by 2037 amid growing concerns about staff shortages in the health service.
The National News reports that the plan to overhaul staffing is “the most radical modernisation and reform of the workforce since the NHS was founded in 1948”, Health Secretary Steve Barclay said as he promoted it on Friday.
It will help the service, which assesses and treats everyone in the country on average 10 times a year, meet the challenges of a growing and ageing population.
The programme was described by the Health Secretary as “the first time any government has ever published a comprehensive workforce plan of this nature.
“It is a hugely important day for the NHS. It is something that many in the NHS have been asking for, for a long time, to have a long-term workforce plan.
“It is the biggest ever expansion in workforce training in the NHS’s history. It is backed up by £2.4 billion of additional funding over the next five years.
“And what it will do is train more staff, more doctors, more nurses, more midwives, but also give more opportunities to the staff within the NHS in terms of apprenticeships, developing more skills, their continual professional development,” he said.
The government will reform training programmes to ensure more efficient service delivery.
“We recognise from the pandemic that there are big waiting lists, we’ve got a plan to clear those but in terms of the longer-term position of the NHS, we also need to boost our domestic training, and that is what the plan today sets out, that long-term vision for the NHS.”
He said the £2.4 billion funding over five years would operate on three broad planks of training, retention and reform to attract new workers.