Public Policy Media
Richard Vize
LATEST
ARTICLES
Workforce plan will challenge
status quo
4 July 2023
Delivering the NHS workforce plan depends on implementing
major reforms which will challenge professional and
organisational power.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan for England1 makes bold
assumptions about productivity improvements, moving care out
of hospital, getting better at prevention and early intervention,
and breaking down clinical hierarchies and boundaries.
The plan estimates that the number of people aged over 85 will
grow 55% by 2037 as part of a continuing trend of significant
population growth. It is inconceivable that the healthcare needs
of this cohort could be met by continuing the NHS’s hospital-
centric, sickness-based operating model.
Moving care from hospitals to homes, exploiting artificial
intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (using
software robots to emulate human actions such as putting
together a patient discharge summary) and removing barriers
that prevent clinicians innovating or working differently are just
three of the changes on which the success of the workforce
plan depends.
The shape of the workforce is projected to change markedly,
with the total nursing staff working outside acute settings
increasing from 30% to 37%, and the total community
workforce nearly doubling. The demand for mental health and
learning disability staff is growing at 4.4%, more than double
the growth in acute demand.
Alongside this are ambitious plans to increase the number of
nursing associates—who sit between healthcare support
workers and registered nurses—from 4 600 to 64 000. This will
give them a greatly increased role in care delivery, while
registered nurses will focus more on care planning and
assessment. If successful this will provide a career
development pipeline from support worker to nurse.
Read the full article at BMJ
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Starmer’s promises set Labour
up to fail
26 May 2023
Keir Starmer is making big, conflicting, and unrealistic promises
on health, without a clear plan for delivering them, which is
setting Labour up to fail.
In a speech at a Braintree ambulance station on Monday 22
May 2023, Starmer, leader of the Labour party, committed a
Labour government to meeting a raft of targets that haven’t
been hit for years, saying, “Ambulances – seven minutes for
cardiac arrest. A&E – back to the four hour target. GPs – the
highest satisfaction levels on record. Waiting lists – down.
Planned treatment within 18 weeks. No backsliding, no
excuses – we will meet these standards again.”
As if that isn’t enough to keep a new government busy, he also
committed Labour to improving healthy life expectancy and
halving the inequality gap between English regions.
He claimed this would be achieved by diagnosing 75% of all
cancers at stage 1 or 2 – which would require a huge
performance leap – and cutting heart attacks and strokes by a
quarter within a decade. He also committed to cutting the
number of deaths by suicide.
All this will be achieved while Labour shifts services from
hospitals to communities with a big expansion of local health
services.
Read the full article at BMJ
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Labour’s health plan has a
serious flaw
25 April 2023
Labour may have got the basic idea right in prioritising primary
care over hospitals if they come to power, but they risk
deluding themselves about the scale of the task.
In a major speech at the King’s Fund last week fleshing out the
opposition’s plans for the NHS, shadow health secretary Wes
Streeting touted New Labour’s achievements in slashing
waiting lists and waiting times as proof that his party could turn
around the fortunes of the health service.
He said the plans would be delivered by a mixture of
investment and reform, but “the state of the public finances
means reform will have to do more of the heavy lifting.”
Keir Starmer’s team have been keen to learn lessons from New
Labour’s time in power, and it shows. There is more than a hint
of former health secretary Alan Milburn in Streeting’s
approach—positioning himself on the side of patients to
challenge the system rather than being a cheerleader for the
health service.
But the scale of change Labour is proposing is massive, going
far beyond recruiting more primary care staff. They are
promising a fundamental shift of care from hospitals to
communities and homes. “Healthcare on your doorstep” is now
one of Labour’s three principles for healthcare, alongside “there
when you need it” and “patients in control.”
Read the full article at BMJ
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