Workforce issues
Calls to tackle attrition and recruitment in nursing
Last year, the Nuffield Trust warned that the domestic training pipeline for clinical careers is ‘unfit for purpose’ – with too many staff dropping out of training and leaving their NHS careers. Now, the Royal College of Nursing is highlighting issues with recruitment too.
Growing the domestic supply of healthcare staff is critical to ensuring a long-term, sustainable solution to meet the rising demand for healthcare, as well as replacing staff who leave. The good news is that the number of nurses and midwives working in the NHS is increasing, according to new figures. NHS England data for November shows that the number of nurses and midwives working in the NHS in England is now at 372,411 – in fact, there were over 20,000 more in the NHS workforce going into this winter compared with last year. The number of midwives has also grown by more than 1,100 from the previous year to 23,396, according to NHS England. Professor Mark Radford, Director of Education
and Training, NHS England, said: “We are pleased to see the growth within the nursing, midwifery and support staff workforce and will build on this as we work to achieve the Long Term Workforce Plan commitment to train and retain more nurses and midwives. “Showing people what a nursing or midwifery
career has to offer will be vital to the success of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan and the NHS is growing a number of entry routes, such as the nurse degree apprenticeship, to make sure a career in nursing is a possibility for as many people as possible.” Targeted initiatives to support the midwifery
workforce to grow included NHS England funding retention programmes in every
maternity unit in England and additional in-year investment of up to £4 million to accelerate the number of Professional Midwifery and Nurse Advocates.
While this is a postive step foward,
analysis published by the Nuffield Trust has previously laid bare the scale of losses caused by clinical staff dropping out of training and opting out of careers in the NHS.1 High leaver rates among nurses and other
Simply ploughing more staff into training without thinking either about why they leave, or what might tempt them to stay, is enormously short-sighted. The government’s plans to increase clinical training places must be accompanied by a realistic plan to encourage
staff to stay and reward them for doing so. Dr. Billy Palmer, Nuffield Trust.
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www.clinicalservicesjournal.com I March 2024
clinical staff, both during training and early into their careers, are putting the NHS under severe strain and costing the taxpayer. The Nuffield Trust has called for the problem to be tackled urgently through initiatives including a scheme that gradually writes off their student debt over ten years. The Nuffield Trust’s calculations draw on over 190,000 student records and represent the most comprehensive look to date at attrition rates across the clinical career pathway – in training, post qualification and into the first few years of work. They reveal that one in eight nursing students dropped out during training, one in nine midwives do not join their profession after graduating and around one in five nurses have left NHS hospital and community settings within two years of joining. The analysis also looks at the medical workforce, finding that two training posts are required to get one full-time GP due to high rates of attrition and part-time work. The authors argue that losses from the pipeline of qualification and work represent a huge cost inefficiency, with the typical nurse
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