Health Foundation responds to Public Accounts Committee report on the supply of NHS clinical staff

The Public Accounts Committee has today (Wednesday 11 May 2016) published a report looking at the supply of NHS clinical staff.

Anita Charlesworth, Director of Research and Economics at the Health Foundation, comments:

'With over 1.4 million people working in the NHS, health care is fundamentally a people business and workforce policy is central to the quality and finance challenges that the NHS faces. A major driver of hospital deficits is the spending on agency staff. This has been driven by deep-seated problems in recruiting and retaining key staff. As the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report shows NHS workforce planning has been fundamentally flawed for a number of years. Too often workforce policy is considered as an afterthought, as the PAC has found here on seven-day working.

'Just yesterday, NHS England confirmed that local NHS services need to find a further £15bn of efficiencies over this parliament to meet the national target of £22bn by 2021/22. To address this, policy needs to focus on the fundamentals of workforce problems not just the cap on agency staff. National leaders should take urgent action to improve the supply of clinically skilled staff and create working conditions which support and retain staff who are working hard in a busy system.'

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