• Biosimilars
  • Drug Development/R&D
  • All Topics
OHE OHE
Newsletter SignupSubscribe

  • Biosimilars
  • Drug Development/R&D
  • All Topics
OHE OHE
Newsletter SignupSubscribe

Close
OHE OHE
  • Research & Publications
  • News & Insights
  • Education
  • Innovation Policy Prize
  • Events
  • About Us
  • OHE Experts
  • Contact Us
Newsletter SignupSubscribe

Research & Publications

All Publications

Filter by:
  • Biosimilars
  • Cell and Gene Therapies
  • Chronic Diseases
  • Combination Therapies
  • Countering AMR
  • COVID-19 Research
  • Digital Therapies
  • Drug Development/R&D
  • Emerging Markets
  • EQ-5D and PROMs
  • Health Care Systems
  • Health Data and Statistics
  • Health Technology Assessment
  • Precision Medicine
  • Real World Evidence
  • Use of Medicines
  • Value-Based Pricing
  • Vaccine Research
  • Economics of Innovation
  • Measuring and Valuing Outcomes
  • Policy, Organisation and Incentives in Health Systems
  • Value, Affordability and Decision Making

News & Insights

  • News
  • Events
  • Insights
  • Bulletin

Education

  • Education Hub
  • OHE Graduate School
  • EVIA Programme

Innovation Policy Prize

  • The Prize Fund
  • 2022 Prize Fund

Latest Research & Publications

Ignoring the needs of our future workforce could have disastrous consequences for the UK NHS and its patients.

Ignoring the needs of our future workforce could have disastrous consequences for the UK NHS and its patients. In economics, we have a pretty complicated name (hyperbolic discounting) for a very common human inclination, that is to consider that today matters…

Proposal for a General Outcome-based Value Attribution Framework for Combination Therapies

CombTher_Adobe_photoguns_portrait
Read more
© photoguns

Navigating the Landscape of Digital Health – United Kingdom

Healthcare_Adobe_elenabsl
Read more

2021 OHE Annual Report to the Charity Commission

charityreport_lina-trochez-unsplash_landscape
Read more
© Lina Trochez/Unsplash

Supporting the Era of Green Pharmaceuticals in the UK

Sustainability_AdobeStock_270582392_landscape
Read more
  • Cell and Gene Therapies
  • Value, Affordability, and…

Health Technology Assessment of Gene Therapies: Are Our Methods Fit for Purpose?

gene_therapies_national-cancer-institute-unsplash_landscape
Health Technology Assessment of Gene Therapies: Are Our Methods Fit for Purpose?Read more
© NCI/Unsplash
  • Drug Development/R&D
  • Economics of Innovation
  • Health Policy and Regulation

Limitations of CBO’s Simulation Model of New Drug Development as a Tool for Policymakers

CBO-US_mayer-tawfik-K4Ckc0AxgDI-unsplash_landscape
Limitations of CBO’s Simulation Model of New Drug Development as a Tool for PolicymakersRead more
© Mayer Tawfik/Unsplash
  • Measuring and Valuing Outcomes
  • PhRMA

When Generic Measures Fail to Reflect What Matters to Patients: Three Case Studies

PROMS_unsplash_National Cancer Institute_landscape
When Generic Measures Fail to Reflect What Matters to Patients: Three Case StudiesRead more
© NCI/Unsplash
  • Health Technology Assessment…
  • Measuring and Valuing Outcomes
  • Canada

Learnings from the Assessments of Entrectinib and Larotrectinib: Health Technology Assessment Challenges Associated with Tumour-Agnostic Therapies

Cancer_WellcomeCollection_landscape
Learnings from the Assessments of Entrectinib and Larotrectinib: Health Technology Assessment Challenges Associated with Tumour-Agnostic TherapiesRead more
© WellcomeCollection
Close
OHE
  • All Publications

    Filter by:
    • Biosimilars
    • Cell and Gene Therapies
    • Chronic Diseases
    • Combination Therapies
    • Countering AMR
    • COVID-19 Research
    • Digital Therapies
    • Drug Development/R&D
    • Emerging Markets
    • EQ-5D and PROMs
    • Health Care Systems
    • Health Data and Statistics
    • Health Technology Assessment
    • Precision Medicine
    • Real World Evidence
    • Use of Medicines
    • Value-Based Pricing
    • Vaccine Research
    • Economics of Innovation
    • Measuring and Valuing Outcomes
    • Policy, Organisation and Incentives in Health Systems
    • Value, Affordability and Decision Making
    • News
    • Events
    • Insights
    • Bulletin
    • Education Hub
    • OHE Graduate School
    • EVIA Programme
    • The Prize Fund
    • 2022 Prize Fund
  • Events
  • About Us
  • OHE Experts
  • Contact Us
Newsletter SignupSubscribe
Back
  • Blog
11 min read 12th May 2022

Ignoring the needs of our future workforce could have disastrous consequences for the UK NHS and its patients.

Ignoring the needs of our future workforce could have disastrous consequences for the UK NHS and its patients. In economics, we have a pretty complicated name (hyperbolic discounting) for a very common human inclination, that is to consider that today matters…

Share:
Krankenschwestern mit Arzt, Generative KI

Ignoring the needs of our future workforce could have disastrous consequences for the UK NHS and its patients. In economics, we have a pretty complicated name (hyperbolic discounting) for a very common human inclination, that is to consider that today matters much more than tomorrow. However, the UK NHS is facing the consequences of the workforce being planned mostly for the short term as if tomorrow doesn’t quite count.

In the aftermath of COVID-19, more ordinary concerns are recapturing our attention. We are slowly leaving behind a constant state of emergency and, at times, unavoidable improvisation.

Sadly, after the heroic effort of the NHS staff during the pandemic, the future of the NHS looks increasingly bleak: in 2021, at least 20% of its staff were considering early retirement or switching careers. Being overworked by clinical and escalating administrative tasks and the lack of incentives and rewards explain the looming NHS staff exodus.  Focusing on the lack of incentives for retention, the below graph reveals how medical staff have suffered real wage losses in the last decade.

The resulting number of vacancies is astonishingly high. NHS England alone had 110,192 vacancies, equivalent to an 8.3 % vacancy rate at the end of 2021. GPs are experiencing a similar situation, and certain medical specialities are under higher pressure than others (i.e., anaesthetists or radiologists). There is no sign that these vacancies are going to be filled in the near future. Welcome, but insufficient, piecemeal governmental efforts to increase nurses, doctors and GP recruitment and the partial restitution of the nurses’ and medical bursaries are not considered enough to address the present and future staffing problems.

The UK NHS workforce shortages issue is not new; it has been brewing for years and is largely the result of the lack of workforce long-term planning during the last decade, which the COVID-19 crisis compounded.

Safe and efficient levels of staffing tomorrow require adjusting medical staff training and education many years in advance. In an effort to take a step in the right direction, the government merged Health Education with NHS England and NHS Improvement, but this has yet to result in a long-term plan by which the latter can inform the training needs to be implemented by the former.

The looming NHS workforce cataclysm has caused a compelling outcry from a broad range of experts and analysts, such as The Kings Fund, The Health Foundation, and Nuffield Trust, to name only a few. It is also the object of attention of numerous news outlets (the British Medical Journal, Health Services Journal, The Economist, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, etc.). Furthermore, an amendment to the Health and Care Bill calling for an objective and independent mechanism to predict the future right staffing of the NHS received the support of over 100 organisations,  but it failed to be incorporated in the approved Act.

In conclusion, COVID-19 has made it more evident than ever that a health care system must be resilient as well as sustainable. These two objectives might clash at times, but this is escalated when the budget is guided by short-term objectives that do not take into consideration the needs of tomorrow. Given the eternal budgetary constraints faced by the NHS, understanding the health care system workforce’s upcoming requirements are more vital than ever.  Carefully orchestrated integration and coordination solutions could alleviate today and tomorrow’s blockages. It is time that decision-makers realise the benefits of behaving maturely, stop ignoring the future, and leave behind the current short-sighted approach to NHS workforce planning.

Mireia Jofre-Bonet  |  Vice President of Research  |  OHE

  • Digital Therapies
  • Policy, Organisation and…
  • Health Policy and Regulation

Related Blogs

Waiting The Turn In A Hospital. Back View Of Sitting Group Of Pe
  • Blog
  • June 2022

The Benefits of Early Engagement with Payers and Patient Representatives: The Case Study of a MoCA Pilot Project on ANCA-associated Vasculitis

Read more
  • Blog
  • February 2022

How Does Pharmaceutical Spending Drive Innovation in Europe?

Read more
  • Blog
  • December 2021

OHE Critique of CBO’S Pharmaceutical Investment Model Provides Warning for Policymakers on Reliability of Estimates

Read more
CBO Report
  • Blog
  • September 2021

Does the New CBO Report Change Anything?

Read more
footer_ohe_logo

Leading intellectual authority on global health economics

Sign Up for the OHE News Bulletin

Newsletter SignupStart Sign Up

Research & Publications

News & Insights

Innovation Policy Prize

Education

Events

About Us

OHE Experts

Contact Us

Sign Up for the OHE News Bulletin

Newsletter SignupStart Sign Up

The Office of Health Economics (OHE) is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (registered number 09848965) and its registered office is at 2nd Floor Goldings House, Hay’s Galleria, 2 Hay’s Lane, London, SE1 2HB.

Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookies Policy

© 2023 OHE

© 2023 Website Design

An error has occurred, please try again later.An error has occurred, please try again later.

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

 Twitter
 Facebook
 LinkedIn
 Copy
 Email
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!