The Parliamentary health and social care committee has published the first report of its inquiry into the government’s proposals for the reform of health and social care. Its recommendations to government include that Health Education England (HEE) should produce regular reports on NHS staffing requirements.
In February the government published Working together to improve health and social care for all. This is a white paper setting out legislative proposals for a health and care bill. The next step, following the Queen’s Speech, is publication of the bill.
The health and social care committee scrutinises the work of the Department of Health and Social Care and its associated public bodies. It therefore opened an inquiry into the proposals, to which the RCP submitted written evidence. It has so far taken in-person evidence from health think tanks, NHS Confederation, NHS Providers, Local Government Association, HealthWatch England, NHS England and Improvement, and the secretary of state for health and social care.
Today it published its first report, which covers integrated care systems, social care, additional powers for the secretary of state, public health and reducing bureaucracy. While all of these areas are relevant for our influencing priorities, our primary focus is workforce planning.
We recently set out our view on NHS workforce planning, making the case for transparency and accountability. We wrote to the secretary of state about this, as did the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges; the Health Foundation, Nuffield Trust and The King’s Fund; and the NHS Confederation, NHS Providers, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges and Unison.
The committee refers to all these proposals in its report. As a result, it recommends that “the Government include in the Bill, provisions to require HEE to publish objective, transparent and independent annual reports on workforce shortages and future staffing requirements that cover the next five, ten and twenty years including an assessment of whether sufficient numbers are being trained.”
This unity is excellent news after years of campaigning from all of us to highlight the growing gap between the demands on the health and care service and the supply of doctors, nurses and other professionals. We have seen over the course of the pandemic that the system operates at capacity, with little room to deal with emergencies at the same time as delivering timely, routine care. The much-needed goal of better integrating health and social care services will only succeed if we have the staff, and that requires long-term planning.
The requirement for greater transparency in the form of regular published independent assessments of workforce requirements would help to ensure that decisions are based on the best available evidence. Whether the work is done by HEE or another designated body, the key is that independent data is in the public domain to be scrutinised, and the government has to respond.
We will continue to keep RCP members up-to-date in the coming weeks and months with further developments on government’s plans to reform health and social care.
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11 February 2021 | RCP welcomes further detail on NHS legislation for more integrated care
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10 February 2021 | Royal College of Physicians responds to Health and Care White Paper
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15 January 2021 | RCP response to NHS England consultation on integrated care legislation