The staffing crisis in the NHS is deepening so fast that the service could be short of 350,000 key personnel by 2030, health experts have warned.
The NHS in England is already short of over 100,000 staff, including 10,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses, official figures show. However, on current trends, analysts project that the gap between staff needed and the number available could reach almost 250,000 by 2020.
"This number could be more than 350,000 by 2030,” according to the briefing by the King’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation. “Unless new NHS staff can quickly be recruited and trained, the NHS simply will not have the workers available to meet the demand for healthcare expected over the next decade.”
The experts blame the situation on “an incoherent approach to workforce policy at a national level, poor workforce planning, restrictive immigration policies and inadequate funding for training places”. Funding for education and training of staff has been cut by £2bn since 2006, it says.
The NHS in England is already short of over 100,000 staff, including 10,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses, official figures show. However, on current trends, analysts project that the gap between staff needed and the number available could reach almost 250,000 by 2020.
"This number could be more than 350,000 by 2030,” according to the briefing by the King’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation. “Unless new NHS staff can quickly be recruited and trained, the NHS simply will not have the workers available to meet the demand for healthcare expected over the next decade.”
The experts blame the situation on “an incoherent approach to workforce policy at a national level, poor workforce planning, restrictive immigration policies and inadequate funding for training places”. Funding for education and training of staff has been cut by £2bn since 2006, it says.
“The NHS is overstretched and services are being compromised by serious staff shortages. As things stand, this problem will only get worse over the next decade, putting access and quality of care at risk,” said Prof Anita Charlesworth, director of economics at the Health Foundation.
Cancer Research UK said the NHS’s cancer workforce would need to double by 2027 or hospitals would not be able to care properly for the growing number of patients being diagnosed.
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