Mansfield MP welcomes first NHS long-term workforce Plan

This plan significantly reforms both recruitment and retainment of NHS staff in order to improve patient care and cut waiting lists.

Under this plan, record numbers of doctors, nurses, dentists and other healthcare staff will be trained in England.

Backed by £2.4 billion of funding over the next five years, the plan represents long-term investment to deliver the most radical modernisation and reform of the workforce since the NHS was founded in 1948.

Coming ahead of the NHS’s 75th anniversary, the plan sets out how the NHS will address existing vacancies and meet the challenges of a growing and ageing population by recruiting and retaining hundreds of thousands more staff over 15 years and working in new ways.

This once-in-a-generation opportunity to make long-term staffing sustainable and improve patient care, focusing on retaining existing talent and making the best use of new technology, automating some clinical decisions where it is safe to do so, alongside the biggest expansion of training places in health service history to address the gap.

Coun Bradley, also Nottinghamshire Council leader, said: “The NHS and access to NHS services is one of the most common reasons that constituents contact my office. I have consistently made the point to government that long term workforce planning is needed in order to improve both conditions for staff and the services patients access.

“That is why I am delighted to see this radical new NHS Workforce Plan that significantly reforms both how we train more staff and better retain those already in the NHS. I am also pleased to see the government commit over £2.4bn in funding to those plans, ensuring the measures outlined in the plan are properly funded and can be delivered.

“I look forward to seeing these plans put into action and the better outcomes for both patients and staff that I know this announcement will help achieve.”