Securing a sustainable and fit-for-purpose UK health and care workforce

Michael Anderson, Ciaran O'Neill, Jill Macleod Clark, Andrew Street, Michael Woods, Charlotte Johnston-Webber, Anita Charlesworth, Moira Whyte, Margaret Foster, Azeem Majeed, Emma Pitchforth, Elias Mossialos, Miqdad Asaria and Alistair McGuire

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Approximately 13% of the total UK workforce is employed in the health and care sector. Despite substantial workforce planning efforts, the effectiveness of this planning has been criticised. Education, training, and workforce plans have typically considered each health-care profession in isolation and have not adequately responded to changing health and care needs. The results are persistent vacancies, poor morale, and low retention. Areas of particular concern highlighted in this Health Policy paper include primary care, mental health, nursing, clinical and non-clinical support, and social care. Responses to workforce shortfalls have included a high reliance on foreign and temporary staff, small-scale changes in skill mix, and enhanced recruitment drives. Impending challenges for the UK health and care workforce include growing multimorbidity, an increasing shortfall in the supply of unpaid carers, and the relative decline of the attractiveness of the National Health Service (NHS) as an employer internationally. We argue that to secure a sustainable and fit-for-purpose health and care workforce, integrated workforce approaches need to be developed alongside reforms to education and training that reflect changes in roles and skill mix, as well as the trend towards multidisciplinary working. Enhancing career development opportunities, promoting staff wellbeing, and tackling discrimination in the NHS are all needed to improve recruitment, retention, and morale of staff. An urgent priority is to offer sufficient aftercare and support to staff who have been exposed to high-risk situations and traumatic experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to growing calls to recognise and reward health and care staff, growth in pay must at least keep pace with projected rises in average earnings, which in turn will require linking future NHS funding allocations to rises in pay. Through illustrative projections, we show that, to sustain annual growth in the workforce at approximately 2·4%, increases in NHS expenditure of 4% annually in real terms will be required. Above all, a radical long-term strategic vision is needed to ensure that the future NHS workforce is fit for purpose.

JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2021-05-22
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Lancet (London, England), 22, May, 2021, 397(10288), pp. 1992 - 2011. ISSN: 0140-6736

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110809/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:110809

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().