More than 300,000 extra nurses, doctors and other health workers will be trained in England over the coming years as part of radical plans to fix chronic staffing issues in the NHS.
Ministers will launch the biggest recruitment drive in the history of the NHS over a 15-year period to address the growing number of vacancies in the health service.
There are currently more than 112,000 vacancies across the NHS in England and health leaders have warned that improving staffing levels is key to addressing the backlog in elective care and improving wait times in A&E, both of which reached record highs earlier this year.
Recruitment and retention are also among the key issues cited by unions for a wave of industrial action that has swept the NHS in the past nine months, with doctors and nurses complaining of high levels of stress and burnout due to staff shortages.
Officials have warned that, without action, there could be 360,000 vacancies in the health service by 2037.
Backed by £2.4 billion of Government funding, the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan will aim to:
•double the number of medical school training places to 15,000 by 2031, with more places in areas with the greatest shortages
•increase the number of GP training places by 50% to 6,000 by 2031
•almost double the number of adult nurse training places by 2031, with 24,000 more nurse and midwife training places per year by 2031.
Officials say the plans set out, along with new retention measures, could mean the health service has at least an extra 60,000 doctors, 170,000 more nurses and 71,000 more allied health professionals in place by 2036/37.
Alongside the plan, officials have asked the doctors' regulator, the General Medical Council (GMC), and medical schools to consult on the introduction of four-year medical degrees, which are five years at present, and medical internships, allowing students to start work six months earlier.
Student nurses will also be able to begin work as soon as they graduate in May, rather than waiting until September.
The NHS will also offer more training places through degree apprenticeships so that staff can “earn while they learn”. Officials estimate that one in six (16 per cent) of all training for clinical staff, including doctors, nurses and other health professionals, will be offered through degree apprenticeships by 2028, including 850 doctor apprenticeships.
Health leaders have also agreed that the plan will be revised every two years to respond to changing needs across the service.
NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said: “The publication of our first-ever NHS long-term workforce plan now gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put staffing on sustainable footing for the years to come.
“As we look to adapt to new and rising demand for health services globally, this long-term blueprint is the first step in a major and much-needed expansion of our workforce to ensure we have the staff we need to deliver for patients.”
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said the plans show the Government’s “determination to support and grow the workforce”.
Senior doctors and health leaders welcomed the plans but called on ministers to release further detail on where and how the money will be spent. The full details of the plan are yet to be released.
Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the Royal College of Medicine, said: “This is the first of its kind and we hope that this will be the sustainable footing on which an adequately staffed and resourced NHS can be built.
“The longevity of this plan recognises that the improvements needed will take time – there are no shortcuts to delivering quality.”
Richard Murray, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund said the publication of the plan “could prove to be a landmark moment”.
“The plan comes after years of chronic NHS staff shortages, as well as existing staff being stretched thinly. Our analysis shows just how deeply a new approach is needed as we compared the UK to international healthcare systems and found the UK has strikingly low levels of key clinical staff, with fewer doctors and nurses per head than most of its peers.
“Of course, the plan needs to be delivered but the commitment to updating the plan every two years provides hope that it will be a lasting way out of the recurrent workforce shortages that have plagued the NHS over decades. The future projections of workforce supply and demand it provides should help politicians and policymakers to lift their heads up from immediate crises and consider the long-term challenges coming down the track.”
NHS unions said the release of the plan marked a moment where “all players begin to shift to discussing meaningful and long-term solutions before the staff shortages bite even harder”.
Pat Cullen, General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “You cannot recruit your way out of a retention crisis and we wish to see detailed plans to keep the experienced staff needed to make any proposals work, and how it intends to make nursing an attractive profession to join.
“The plan must not forget that effective ways to attract people into the profession is to pay staff fairly and demonstrate there are options for career progression.”
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting accused the Tories of “adopting Labour’s plan” to train more doctors and nurses, claiming they had “no ideas of their own”.
“They should have done this a decade ago - then the NHS would have enough staff today.
“Instead, the health service is short of 150,000 staff and this announcement will take years to have an impact.
“Patients are waiting longer than ever before for operations, in A&E, or for an ambulance. The Conservatives have no plan to keep the staff working in the NHS, no plan to end the crippling strikes, and no plans to reform the NHS.”
