The UK will face a shortfall of 61,200 nurses by 2050 due to skills shortages, an ageing workforce and restrictive migration policy, according to Randstad Care, a specialist recruiter.
The UK workforce as a whole will have a deficit of 3.1 million by 2050, a figure which represents 9% of the required workforce. Using employment rates from the most recent European population analysis from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, as a measure of demand, Randstad has analysed the projected changes in UK population and working age rate for 2050 to establish the gap between employment demand and workforce supply. Analysis showed that, with a population of 74.5m, in 2050 the UK will require a workforce of 35.4 m to meet demand. However, with a pool of just 45.1 m people forecast to be eligible to work in 2050, even if the employment rate matches pre-downturn levels of 71.6%, an ageing population will leave the UK with only 32.3 m people in employment – 3.1m short of the 35.4 m required to meet demand. Commenting on the analysis, Victoria Short, managing director at Randstad Care, said: “No one can question the importance of the healthcare sector and while our projections for the size of the nursing workforce are conservative, they paint a concerning picture for the UK’s future welfare. Unless we can plug the employment gap, the healthcare sector is under threat. “We know already from the increasing requests we see every day to supply nurses for urgent same day cover, that the service is under severe strain. If it is unable to perform efficiently over the coming decades, there will serious consequences, not only for the country’s health, but the knock on effects of the Government having to fund an understaffed service.” The NHS has also had to deal with a significant drop in the number of international nurses coming to work in the UK. In 2011/2012 approximately 4,000 international nurses were admitted to the UK nursing register. This is a 75% fall since the peak in 2001 when around 16,000 international nurses were admitted. The Royal College of Nursing has stated that the UK has moved from a situation of net inflow of nurses to a position of net outflow in recent years, meaning that more nurses are moving abroad than are coming to the UK with the main destinations being Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US. “Unfortunately, the UK represents a much less attractive option for both domestic and overseas talent than it did a few years ago and without foreign talent bolstering the nursing workforce the sector will have to deal with a large black hole over the coming years. If migration policy is to remain prohibitive then there must be a push to incentivise and train new nurses into the workforce,” concluded Victoria Short.
