Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Acknowledged
NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan assumes optimistic and unproven labour productivity increases.
Conclusion
A key element of NHS England’s plans for the NHS over the coming years is the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan, published on 30 June 2023.16 Despite the decline in productivity in recent years, NHS England’s projections for future staff requirements in its workforce plan assume that NHS labour productivity will increase by 1.5% to 2% by 2036–37. The workforce plan says that modelling to support this productivity improvement assumes that the NHS could deliver a higher level of productivity than the long term trends.17
Government Response Summary
The government agrees (with what appears to be a conclusion) and states that improving productivity, including reducing staff absences and improving processes, is a key component of existing recovery plans. NHS England will provide further details on factors impacting productivity and future plans in a letter to the Committee.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
1.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: April 2024 1.2 Despite challenges arising from industrial actions and winter pressures, the NHS is making progress to recover the lost productivity as result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest analysis by the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s official statistical body, indicate that this fall may have been entirely recovered, with growth in 2021 of between 22.2% and 30.9%. Part of the challenge the NHS has faced is that patients being treated are now more complex than pre-COVID. The higher than pre-COVID level of sickness absence level is another of the factors, affecting workforce productivity in recent years, although the trend is now declining. The current measurement of productivity also does not fully capture the full range of activities and innovations the sector is delivering, such as expansions of out of hospital care, and is currently being reviewed. 1.3 However, there will always be more opportunity to improve, which is why a key component of the recovery plans for Urgent and Emergency Care and Primary Care and the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is improving elements of productivity, including reducing staff absences and improving processes. 1.4 Demand for health services is linked both to the number of people the health service is looking after and to the age of the population. As people get older, they develop more long-term medical conditions and need more health care. Independent analysis shows that funding growth adjusted for inflation has been 1-2% in real teams, which is below all estimates of the level required to maintain or improve performance. 1.5 NHS England has encouraged providers to achieve even better performance over the second half of 2023 and launched an incentive scheme for those providers with a Type 1 A&E department to overachieve on their planned performance in return for receiving a share of a £150 million capital fund in 2024-25. 1.6 NHS England will elaborate on the understanding of the factors impacting productivity and plans to address these in its letter to the Committee. .