Health and Social Care Workforce

Cooper questions whether there should be a workforce plan for social care, noting that nine NHS leaders and organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing have called for one. She highlights the stark difference in challenges between health and social care sectors.

West emphasises the need to address exploitative practices in employing staff from abroad in care homes. She also queries the committee's assessment of iterative processes related to Treasury assumptions about ageing workforce and mental health needs.

Redwood raises concerns over the high annual loss rate of 9.1%, suggesting that this implies issues with job value or leadership, advocating for better job descriptions and support to improve retention rates.

Walker commends Steve Brine on his report and asks about providing funded places in newly approved university medical schools by an earlier deadline suggested by the committee.

Welcomed the workforce plan and acknowledged its broad principles, noting that NHS England's workforce has expanded by 263,000 since 2010. He emphasised the importance of addressing turnover rates, absence issues, and improving conditions to retain staff. Redwood argued for good management practices at local levels and highlighted the need for managers to ensure tasks are feasible and well-defined. He also noted the productivity gap in public services post-pandemic despite additional funding, suggesting that managers must help staff deliver more treatments while ensuring job satisfaction.

Noted during intervention that exit interviews with NHS staff leaving their trusts often reveal family circumstances as reasons for departure. He highlighted the Messenger review, which discusses leadership in trusts and integrated care systems.

During an intervention, Daisy Cooper pointed out specific productivity issues faced by NHS staff such as burnout leading to more sick days, outdated technology, non-interoperable IT systems, and physical infrastructure problems. She emphasised the need for investment in these areas alongside better management practices.

Welcomed the announcement about public service pay negotiations and urged health unions to consider the offer. Raised concerns about child and adolescent mental health services, emphasising the need for resources and people to address pressing mental health pressures on schools. Highlighted the importance of recruitment, training, upskilling, and retention in the NHS workforce plan. Supported the opening of a medical school at Worcester University but expressed concern over funding limitations and the potential delay in receiving funded places for domestic students starting from September 2025.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling this debate and acknowledge the contributions of other Members. I express concern over assumptions made in the workforce plan, particularly regarding apprenticeships. I praise the Education and Health and Social Care Committees for their work highlighting issues facing health services. Since April, there has been a long-term workforce plan response to address workforce problems which have persisted since 2000. Labour's 10-year NHS investment and reform plan from 2000 delivered significant improvements but it took the current Government 13 years to attempt something similar. The current state of the health and care system is causing issues for patients and staff due to workforce shortages. I criticise the Government’s failure to address these problems sooner, leading to a larger gap between needs and resources now. Personalised medicine and AI will transform healthcare but the plan does not account for this. There is no clear delivery plan or funding details provided in the £2.4 billion commitment. The risks outlined in the plan include dependency on productivity improvements, capital investment, digital infrastructure, and social care capacity. I urge the Minister to confirm support for Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) in implementing workforce strategies.

The NHS and social care workforce are crucial for the health of the nation, with doctors, nurses, pathologists, radiologists, physios, healthcare assistants, porters, social workers, care workers, care home managers and others playing a vital role. The Government has published an ambitious long-term workforce plan to train more doctors (doubling medical school places), increase GP training by 50%, adult nurse training by over 90%, and dentists by 40%. Apprenticeships are being expanded from 7% to 22% of staff trained as apprentices. The plan also focuses on retention, flexibility in working arrangements, and workforce health and wellbeing. Pay rises have been agreed for NHS staff under Agenda for Change contracts, including a 5% pay rise and extra one-off payments for over 1 million staff. The Government has also accepted recommendations from the doctors’ and dentists’ remuneration body, and the NHS pension scheme is being made more flexible to retain experienced staff. Additionally, substantial social care workforce reforms are in place with a new care qualification, specialist training courses, and career progression support for care workers.

Mr Brine thanked the Minister, other contributors, and the Committee members. He highlighted that while progress has been made, issues such as NHS dentistry, volunteer workforce engagement, and sexual health services require further exploration. Mr Brine emphasised the importance of viewing the workforce plan in context with other initiatives like the recovery plan for primary care and pension reforms. He praised the Prime Minister for producing a 15-year plan despite potential political uncertainty and called for its continuation regardless of future government changes.