Report on NHS staffing angers unions as it predicts 36,000 NHS jobs lost this year
The National Health Service is set to shed more than 36,000 jobs this year before facing "very volatile" changes in its workforce that could leave it with thousands more hospital consultants than it can afford to employ, according to a leaked document from the Department of Health. At the same time, however, big cuts in nurse and medical training budgets last year and this year could mean the service will be short of 14,000 nurses, 1,200 family doctors and 1,100 junior hospital staff by 2011.
The document, seen by the Health Service Journal, illustrates the difficulties the NHS faces as it uses cuts in training and staff this year to balance the books - aware that it will need a 7 per cent increase in the workforce in the coming financial year in order to hit the 18-week waiting-time target.
The leaked document is a late draft of the health department's pay and workforce strategy up to 2011, the end of the next three-year spending period. It suggests radical measures, including regional pay, a three-year pay deal that would start with a below-inflation increase and the creation of a new subconsultant grade of specialist doctor, to contribute to the "substantial efficiency gains" needed as the rate of increase in NHS spending slows next year.
The leak - and the acknowledgement of "a real danger of industrial unrest" if the government gets its way and keeps headline pay increases for the coming year to 2 per cent or less - angered health service unions yesterday.
Dr Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, said: "To suggest that there should be fewer consultants, and of a lower grade, will destroy the gold standard of specialist care that patients rightly deserve."
Unison said a move to regional pay, or, as the document suggests, the use of unemployment to drive down nurses' pay in the regions, would be "strongly resisted".
The Royal College of Nursing said the leak "confirms our worst fears" that the government intends to use pay to solve the NHS's overspend, while suggestions that consultants' pay should be held back after recent record increases equally angered the BMA.
The health department said the document represented "early stage" thinking. "Some of these ideas will be dropped and some will become policy," a spokesman said.
As the effects of lower spending growth really begin to bite - a year after the waiting time target has been met - there is set to be a 1.1 per cent fall in the workforce, partly in response to changing needs. The NHS will then have potentially 3,200 more consultants than it can afford to employ by 2010-11, the document says.
Foundation trusts should be encouraged to create lower-grade, and cheaper, posts for consultants, and health staff generally should be offered more fixed-term contracts to smooth out fluctuations in demand.
As reported in:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a32edab0-9b98-11db-aa70-0000779e2340.html
It appears that labour have not got a clue what it is doing with the hard pressed NHS labour force.
Nearly two years ago on Feb 15, 2005 Health Direct noted that the NHS was facing serious shortage of 2,760 surgeons. Thousands of extra surgeons are going to be needed over the next few years to meet demand, a report warns. The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) said there would be a 2,760 shortfall by 2010 because of early retirement and new working practices.
And again on April 25, 2005 when Health Direct reported that 50,000 Nurses left NHS in 2004
Recruits to nursing 'must double' according to the Royal College of Nurses. Thousands of UK-trained NHS nurses are quitting every year despite efforts to boost recruitment, the union has warned. Reasons for leaving included violence by patients and rigid working hours, the Royal College of Nursing said. If the trend continues, the number of annual new recruits will need to double to 66,000 by 2014, its report says.
Continuing yesterday's blog theme about 83% of the populace who don't believe Labour's statistics- here's a story that we found in our archives from exactly two years ago: Labour Govt "exaggerating" the number of NHS staff when the labour government published charts creating a distorted impression of employment in the Department of Health by exaggerating the increase in the number of staff over the past three years.
In last year's annual publication of the National Health Service workforce figures, reporting 2003 data, about 60,000 health workers were dropped from the previous years' figures. As a result, the published bar chart appeared to show a steeper rise in employment than had actually occurred, supporting the government's assertion that the extra resources pouring into the health service were being reflected in higher staffing.
The chart was described by independent statisticians as one of the most blatant misrepresentations of data seen in a government publication.
The document, seen by the Health Service Journal, illustrates the difficulties the NHS faces as it uses cuts in training and staff this year to balance the books - aware that it will need a 7 per cent increase in the workforce in the coming financial year in order to hit the 18-week waiting-time target.
The leaked document is a late draft of the health department's pay and workforce strategy up to 2011, the end of the next three-year spending period. It suggests radical measures, including regional pay, a three-year pay deal that would start with a below-inflation increase and the creation of a new subconsultant grade of specialist doctor, to contribute to the "substantial efficiency gains" needed as the rate of increase in NHS spending slows next year.
The leak - and the acknowledgement of "a real danger of industrial unrest" if the government gets its way and keeps headline pay increases for the coming year to 2 per cent or less - angered health service unions yesterday.
Dr Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, said: "To suggest that there should be fewer consultants, and of a lower grade, will destroy the gold standard of specialist care that patients rightly deserve."
Unison said a move to regional pay, or, as the document suggests, the use of unemployment to drive down nurses' pay in the regions, would be "strongly resisted".
The Royal College of Nursing said the leak "confirms our worst fears" that the government intends to use pay to solve the NHS's overspend, while suggestions that consultants' pay should be held back after recent record increases equally angered the BMA.
The health department said the document represented "early stage" thinking. "Some of these ideas will be dropped and some will become policy," a spokesman said.
As the effects of lower spending growth really begin to bite - a year after the waiting time target has been met - there is set to be a 1.1 per cent fall in the workforce, partly in response to changing needs. The NHS will then have potentially 3,200 more consultants than it can afford to employ by 2010-11, the document says.
Foundation trusts should be encouraged to create lower-grade, and cheaper, posts for consultants, and health staff generally should be offered more fixed-term contracts to smooth out fluctuations in demand.
As reported in:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a32edab0-9b98-11db-aa70-0000779e2340.html
It appears that labour have not got a clue what it is doing with the hard pressed NHS labour force.
Nearly two years ago on Feb 15, 2005 Health Direct noted that the NHS was facing serious shortage of 2,760 surgeons. Thousands of extra surgeons are going to be needed over the next few years to meet demand, a report warns. The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) said there would be a 2,760 shortfall by 2010 because of early retirement and new working practices.
And again on April 25, 2005 when Health Direct reported that 50,000 Nurses left NHS in 2004
Recruits to nursing 'must double' according to the Royal College of Nurses. Thousands of UK-trained NHS nurses are quitting every year despite efforts to boost recruitment, the union has warned. Reasons for leaving included violence by patients and rigid working hours, the Royal College of Nursing said. If the trend continues, the number of annual new recruits will need to double to 66,000 by 2014, its report says.
Continuing yesterday's blog theme about 83% of the populace who don't believe Labour's statistics- here's a story that we found in our archives from exactly two years ago: Labour Govt "exaggerating" the number of NHS staff when the labour government published charts creating a distorted impression of employment in the Department of Health by exaggerating the increase in the number of staff over the past three years.
In last year's annual publication of the National Health Service workforce figures, reporting 2003 data, about 60,000 health workers were dropped from the previous years' figures. As a result, the published bar chart appeared to show a steeper rise in employment than had actually occurred, supporting the government's assertion that the extra resources pouring into the health service were being reflected in higher staffing.
The chart was described by independent statisticians as one of the most blatant misrepresentations of data seen in a government publication.
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2:33 PM
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