Rising pressure: The NHS workforce challenge Workforce profile and trends of the NHS in England

Note: Read our latest report on NHS workforce.

• The NHS workforce increased by 2% in the year to April 2017, but this masks critical variations – a rise in managers and consultants, but a drop in nurses (0.2% decrease in the year to April 2017) and GPs (0.7% decrease from December 2016 to end of June 2017).
• Increasing admissions and decreasing nurse numbers risk overstretching nurses and undermining progress made in nurse numbers since the Francis report. Outside hospitals, there have been declines in community nurse and health visitor numbers.
• The government has promised 21,000 new posts in mental health by 2020, but there are reservations about whether the target is achievable, or if it will provide staff with the right level of skills.
• 1,220 fewer students had started undergraduate nursing degrees in England in 2017, based on data from the end of the university clearing round. While the number of 18- and 19-year-olds increased, there has been a big fall in the number of older students.
• The government is aiming to recruit 2,000 GPs from overseas over the next 3 years, but just 38 were recruited in the first 6 months of 2017.