An amendment to the Health and Care Bill that seeks to improve workforce planning has been voted through by the House of Lords.
Former NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, now Lord Stevens of Birmingham, and fellow peer Baroness Cumberlege proposed an amendment to the Health and Care Bill, calling for an objective and independent mechanism to set safe staffing levels in the NHS. The change requires the Government to publish “independently verified assessments” every two years on current and future workforce numbers needed for health and social care services in England.
Commenting on the vote, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, Pat Cullen, said: "On the same day that the NHS in England revealed 39,652 unfilled nurse posts, members of the House of Lords voted for the Government to act transparently and regularly set out the health and care workforce gaps.
"But this doesn't go far enough. Our members are urging the Government to act in the interest of patients. The Secretary of State must do more than be transparent about the issues but also accept full accountability for resolving the vacancy crisis within the nursing workforce.
“An acceptance of accountability will go some way to demonstrating to the nursing profession that the Secretary of State hears their concerns and is willing to take responsibility for action.
"If Government continues to ignore the voice of nursing, they are ignoring the voice of the patient. Without enough nursing professionals, safe and effective patient care is simply impossible to deliver."
Richard Murray, chief executive of The King’s Fund, added: “Members of the House of Lords have sent a message to the Government that it must face up to the chronic staff shortages that bedevil NHS and social care services. Peers have successfully amended the Health and Care Bill to require the regular publication of NHS and social care workforce projections. These projections can provide the basis for robust health and care workforce planning, something that has been sadly lacking for many years.
“Poor planning, weak policy and fragmented responsibilities for the health and care workforce mean that staff shortages have become endemic, leaving staff exhausted, services struggling to cope and people waiting longer for the care they need, even before the pandemic. Successive governments have dodged the issue for fear that providing the staff needed to meet people’s health and care needs will prove too expensive. In truth, the failure to plan is a false economy as services resort to expensive agency staff and paying overtime to fill rota gaps.
“Staff shortages are at the heart of many of the challenges facing health and care services. Workforce shortages will be the rate-limiting factor in the government’s ambition to reduce the NHS elective care backlog. To ensure the NHS and social care have the staff required to meet the needs of patients and service users, I urge ministers to resist the temptation to overturn this important amendment.”
Dr David Wrigley, BMA council deputy chair, commented: “The NHS and care services are nothing without their staff. People are unable to receive much-needed care and treatments if there are not enough expert health and care workers to help them. It’s good that this simple message is getting through, and the move from the Lords to accept this amendment shows that they recognise the importance of holding the Government to account for proper workforce planning.
“Figures show that we have more than 110,000 vacancies in England’s hospitals alone, more than 8,000 of which were for doctors, and separate data shows we have lost the equivalent of 279 full-time, fully-qualified GPs in England over the past year. Meanwhile the BMA estimates England has a shortage of around 50,000 doctors compared with our most comparable EU neighbours. These stark figures underscore the need for urgent action to train, recruit and retain the staff required to meet the growing needs of patients across the health service.
“We urge the Government to heed to the message sent from peers, as well as the expert voices within the 100 health and care organisations, think tanks and charities who have consistently backed this amendment, and for MPs to keep it within the Bill as it progresses through Parliament. If they ignore these calls, they will not only be failing staff and health and care services, but failing their constituents – who are the very patients relying on them.”
