Reasons behind staff leaving the health and social care sectors and how to tackle them will be examined in a new inquiry. Workforce recruitment and training will also be explored. The Committee has heard repeatedly that more staff will be needed to meet future demand and deal with the backlog caused by the pandemic. Existing …
| Title | HC No. | Published | Items | Response |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Third Report - Workforce: recruitment, training and retenti… | HC 115 | 25 Jul 2022 | 73 | Responded |
It will not be possible to re-recruit those who have voluntarily surrendered their medical licences without addressing the factors which caused them to do so. For many retirees, this means addressing pensions and the development of “retire and return” policies, for others, this means addressing poor workplace cultures. We will …
Formal re-entry programmes, akin to those which already exist for primary care, should be developed by the NHS, Health Education England, the General Medical Council, and other relevant bodies for secondary care doctors who wish to return to work after a long break.
Given the success of training to task during the pandemic, the Government must consult with relevant bodies to explore further opportunities to mobilise this willing group of volunteers. They must also consider whether further changes to the law are necessary in order to allow more volunteers to work on a …
Improving diversity in the recruitment of midwives will improve the standard of care that black, Asian, mixed-race, and minority ethnic women receive throughout pregnancy, birth, and the post-natal period. Health Education England should set forth a recruitment plan with clear targets to increase the ethnic diversity of people going into …
NHS England must publish interim figures reporting on how close it is to achieving its target of 75% of women from black and minority communities and a similar percentage of women from the most deprived groups receiving continuity of care from their midwife throughout pregnancy, labour, and the postnatal period …
Administrative barriers are often placed in the way of talented international medical graduates who wish to work in the NHS. In particular, it can be difficult for them to join the specialist register. To streamline this process, and boost recruitment into the NHS, the General Medical Council should introduce a …
International recruitment from the developing world must be done in an ethical way, and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges’ Medical Training Initiative, which recruits international medical graduates to work in the NHS for a fixed-term period with a specific remit of improving the quality of healthcare in developing countries …
Many health and social care workers have caring responsibilities, including for adult relatives. The Government must commit to revising the amount of proof that must be provided to bring an adult dependant into the UK through the Sole Responsibility and Adult Dependant visa routes to ensure that it is not …
The practice of requiring medical staff entering the country on Tier 5 visas to pay and reclaim the NHS surcharge should be scrapped.
All international medical graduate GP trainees should be offered leave to remain in the UK upon successful completion of GP speciality training. This would encourage them to live and work in the UK, protecting the NHS’s investment and boosting the GP headcount.
There should be more support both for newly qualified international GPs and their would-be employers. There should be a default visa extension for six months after the international medical graduate’s expected GP training completion date, to give them time to find an appropriate employer. The Home Office and UK Visas …
The NHS must ensure that all staff have access to adequate facilities. At the minimum, all staff should have access to 24/7 hot food and drinks, free parking, and places to rest, store their belongings, shower and change, and take breaks with colleagues. The NHS should conduct a welfare provision …
The Government should review the provision of affordable and flexible childcare for people working in the health and social care sector, and assess whether it is possible to improve it.
Whilst we welcome changes made to the NHS contract that give every NHS worker a “day one” right to request flexible working, it is clear that this has been insufficient to make flexible working a daily reality in the NHS. No NHS employee should be choosing to locum or work …
It is unacceptable that some NHS nurses are struggling to feed their families, pay their rent, and travel to work. To reflect the crucial work that they do to keep the NHS running, and to improve recruitment and retention, the Government must give all NHS staff employed under Agenda for …
The NHS must review the job descriptions used for nursing and midwifery roles under Agenda for Change to ensure that nurses and midwives are being paid fairly for the safety critical roles that they deliver.
The current UDA-contract system is not fit for purpose, and urgent reform is needed to boost recruitment and retention in NHS dental services. We will return to this issue in a forthcoming inquiry into dental services.
There is an opportunity to better utilise the pharmacy workforce, and in doing so, to optimise workloads across primary care, reduce pressure on general practice and hospitals, and support integrated care systems. This optimisation will not be possible without an integrated and funded workforce plan for pharmacy which must be …
As part of the expansion of medical schools, the cap on the number of medical school places offered to international students should be lifted by allowing full registration at the end of the Primary Medical Qualification and asking international students to fund the cost of their foundation year placements.
We believe that the General Medical Council’s emphasis on acquiring competency in postgraduate training, rather than focusing on “time-served” is the right way to go. The Government must commission an independent review of all postgraduate training to consider whether it is possible to i) reduce the time it takes to …
We were horrified to hear clear evidence of racism within the NHS, with some staff subjected to racist bullying, harassment, and abuse from colleagues and patients. This behaviour is unacceptable anywhere, and we condemn it expressly here. Tackling racism is a recruitment and retention issue, and the NHS and Government …
There should be greater accountability from NHS senior and middle management for the reduction of incidents of racist discrimination amongst staff. This should include explicit equality, diversity, and inclusion responsibilities in senior leadership job role descriptions, against which the performance of senior leaders is reviewed, and to which their pay …
The NHS is not the only public sector organisation which finds itself facing the challenge of tackling racism. Given that addressing inequalities is a cross-government priority, the Government must commission a What Works Centre to research issues of discrimination in public sector workforces, to collate an evidence base around existing …
We welcome the roll-out of a pilot Social Care Workplace Racial Equality Standard to some local authorities and encourage the Government to extend the Social Care Workforce: recruitment, training and retention in health and social care 63 Workplace Racial Equality Standard across all local authorities. However, we also recognise that …
The NHS has shown through the pilot scheme in the East of England that setting up independent review panels to review anonymised case information before cases are formally referred to the General Medical Council results in parity of referral between white and ethnic minority doctors. This practice must be rolled …
We welcome the General Medical Council’s new targets to eliminate disproportionate complaints from employers about ethnic minority doctors (by 2026) and eradicate disadvantage and discrimination in medical education and training (by 2031). The Nursing and Midwifery Council must introduce parallel targets to eliminate disproportionate complaints from employers about ethnic minority …
Talented women are missing out on the opportunity to become surgeons because of a lack of support and role models. The NHS should develop a strategy to attract and retain more women into surgery.
It is unacceptable that the gender pay gap persists in medicine. The Government should make a report on progress made against recommendations on how to close this gap made in ‘Mend the Gap: The Independent Review into Gender Pay Gaps in Medicine in England”.
NHS England should develop and implement a national menopause strategy focused on the retention of senior staff who may be reducing their hours, leaving management or supervisory roles, or retiring earlier than intended, because of a lack of support around menopause.
The NHS should look to improve its complaints procedure to ensure that doctors are supported throughout any investigation or inquiry, including to the General Medical Council, and are protected in particular from spurious, vexatious, or discriminatory complaints.
The Government should consider whether reforms can be made to the Medical Act 1983 to ensure that General Medical Council regulatory processes can be simplified to reassure both the public and clinicians, without the loss of accountability.
The NHS must commit to the creation of positive working cultures and inclusive work environments. They should do this through creating and enforcing zero tolerance policies for harassment, discrimination, and bullying towards all staff, with targeted policies for staff who may be particularly vulnerable to these behaviours, and online behaviours. …
We have heard evidence that staff shortages are having an impact on the ability of social care staff to provide good-quality care to the people they support. Lara Bywater told us that in the 20 years she has been running her organisation, she has “never seen a staff shortage impact …
We welcome the Fair Cost of Care exercises as an opportunity to address the underfunding of the social care sector. However, these exercises must not be used as an excuse to reinforce the low pay which is endemic in the sector. The Government must ensure that the cost of care …
| Date | Witnesses | |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Jun 2022 | Chevonne Baker · Right at Home UK, Dr Claire Fuller · Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care System, Dr Hugh Porter · Nottingham City Integrated Care Partnership, Matthew Taylor · Good Work Review, Saffron Cordery · NHS Providers, Sarah Sweeney · National Voices | View ↗ |
| 7 Jun 2022 | Amanda Pritchard · NHS England, Matthew Style · Department of Health and Social Care, Michelle Dyson · Department for Education, Professor Stephen Powis · NHS England, Rt Hon Sajid Javid · Department of Health and Social Care | View ↗ |
| 24 May 2022 | Danny Mortimer · NHS Employers, Dr Denise Chaffer · Royal College of Nursing, Dr Navina Evans · NHS England, Gill Walton · Royal College of Midwives, Ian Trenholm · Care Quality Commission (CQC), Professor Em Wilkinson-Brice · NHS England, Ravi Sharma · Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Shawn Charlwood · British Dental Association (BDA) General Dental Practice Committee, Simon Williams · Local Government Association | View ↗ |
| 11 May 2022 | Dr Latifa Patel · British Medical Association (BMA), Isaac Samuels, Health and social care community campaigner and social care recipient, Lara Akinnawonu · Cardiff University, Professor Colin Melville · General Medical Council, Professor Hazel Scott · University of Liverpool, Professor Malcolm Reed · Medical Schools Council, Professor Roger Kirby · Royal Society of Medicine, Professor Scott Wilkes · University of Sunderland, Sophie Weaver, Town councillor and social care recipient, Trevor Wright, lived experience witness | View ↗ |
| 22 Mar 2022 | Dr Vishal Sharma · Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital NHS Trust, Dr Wen Wang · University of Leicester, Jacqui McBurnie · NHS England and NHS Improvement Menopause Group, Nina Hemmings · Nuffield Trust, Prema Fairburn-Dorai · Primary Homecare in Suffolk, Professor Carol Atkinson · Manchester Metropolitan University, Professor Carol Woodhams · University of Surrey, Professor Dame Clare Gerada · NHS Practitioner Health, Shilpa Ross · The King's Fund, Wayne Jaffe · University Hospital of North Midlands NHS Trust | View ↗ |
| 1 Mar 2022 | Chris Hopson · NHS England, Dr Emma Hayward · University of Leicester, Gamu Nyasoro · Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Jane Ashcroft CBE · Anchor Hanover, Lara Bywater · LDC Care, Nicola McQueen · NHS Professionals, Oonagh Smyth · Skills for Care, Professor Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard · University of Birmingham, Rachael Dodgson · Dimensions, Sarah McClinton · Association of Directors of Adult Social Services | View ↗ |
| Date | Direction | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 6 Sep 2022 | — | Correspondence from the Chief Executive of NHS England on Workforce: recruitme… |