The latest Health and Care Bill has now received Royal Assent, meaning it will now become law.
The latest legislation sets out key changes to reform the delivery and organisation of health services in England. However, the Bill has been widely criticised for its lack of "steps to tackle the nursing workforce crisis". More than 100 expert health and care organisations, Royal Colleges, charities and think tanks, as well as MPs and peers from across the political divide, supported amendments that would have held the Government legally accountable for providing regular assessments over the staffing numbers that we need now and in the future.
While an amendment was submitted to the Bill for the introduction of an independent workforce planning system, the Government used its majority to vote against this amendment. The law will now come into effect without this change.
Throughout the bill’s passage through parliament, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has been campaigning for key changes to make the health secretary accountable for having enough nursing staff to meet patient demand and to require the Government to publish a fully funded workforce strategy, including assessments of workforce needs now and in the future.
RCN General Secretary & Chief Executive Pat Cullen, commented: “Ministers ignored our members’ and patients’ concerns. Tens of thousands of nursing vacancies are contributing to treatment delays, with some patients paying the highest price. All major health care organisations asked these elected representatives to publish an assessment of how many nursing staff and others are needed to provide safe patient care.
“Nursing staff will continue to demand action on behalf of patients and the public. We’ll not stop fighting for safe staffing. Only by having enough staff, who have the right skills and are paid fairly for their safety critical work, will patients get the high-quality care they deserve.”
BMA council deputy chair, Dr. David Wrigley, also criticised the final Bill: “The BMA has consistently said that this is the wrong bill at the wrong time, which completely fails to address the main problems the NHS and our members are facing: too few resources, a crisis in social care and crucially, a huge shortfall of staff.
“While we have seen some concessions from the Westminster Government, responding to our calls for greater protection from private providers influencing commissioning decisions via membership of NHS decision-making bodies, and safeguards to help prevent undue political interference in the running of local health and care services, we are utterly dismayed that ministers have ultimately failed to listen to frontline workers and demonstrate its commitment to safely staff the NHS and care services," he commented.
The BMA estimates that England is already short of more than 45,000 doctors, and without a transparent, nationwide stocktake, it is impossible to plan for the future.
“Throughout the Bill’s journey, peers and MPs have expressed their dismay at the Government’s refusal to accept the amendments and provide these assessments, forcing further scrutiny of their failure to commit to ensuring we have enough staff to meet the health and care needs of our growing population We are therefore forced yet again to ask: what does the Government have to hide?" Dr. Wrigley continued.
“Having missed this vital opportunity to prove how seriously they take the safe staffing of the NHS and social care, it will be ministers who have to answer when patient care continues to suffer. As the Bill now becomes an Act, we will continue to campaign for a publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable NHS that gets the investment it needs, is properly staffed and protects the health and wellbeing of its workers, so they are able to provide the high quality and timely care that patients deserve.”
