See the latest information and briefing on workforce planning in the Health and Care Bill.
The coalition of over 100 health and care organisations behind the #StrengthInNumbers campaign has issued a briefing urging peers to support and vote for Amendment 29 in lieu tabled by Baroness Cumberlege to the Health and Care Bill.
You can download a briefing and see the full list of organisations in the coalition at the bottom of the page.
Throughout the passage of the bill, a coalition of health and care organisations – including the Royal College of Physicians – has been calling for an amendment to mandate the regular publication of independent assessments of current and future workforce numbers in the Health and Care Bill.
Peers in the House of Lords voted to accept this amendment 171 to 119 on 3 March 2022, but MPs subsequently voted to remove it on 30 March 2022. This means that the Health and Care Bill once again gives no clarity on how many staff we need to deliver care now or in future.
The coalition of over 100 organisations is asking peers to support and vote for amendment 29 in lieu tabled by Baroness Cumberlege.
This amendment will ensure the bill provides a mechanism for attaining clarity about the number of health and social care staff we need now and in the future. Without this amendment, we will continue to fly blind on NHS and social care staffing.
Government continues to dismiss amendments on workforce planning on the basis that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has commissioned a ‘long-term strategic framework’ - or ‘Framework 15’ – to look at the drivers of workforce supply and demand. It has also asked NHS England (NHSE) to produce a long-term workforce plan. But Framework 15 was first published in 2014, last updated in 2017, and yet there is no publicly available assessment of workforce numbers now nor into the future. And according to Baroness Harding, government blocked the inclusion of projected staff numbers in the last NHS workforce strategy the People Plan.
We hope progress will be made on this important issue so the health and care system has the staff it needs to deliver the care and treatments patients need and expect.
#StrengthInNumbers
