Health secretary must tackle NHS workforce and pay or face “painful winter,” leaders warn

Medical and healthcare leaders have bemoaned the absence of a plan for tackling the NHS’s workforce crisis in Thérèse Coffey’s speech to the Conservative Party conference this week.1In her keynote address to the conference on 4 October, the health and social care secretary for England cited the recent publication of the government’s Our Plan for Patients policy document, which pledged to focus on ambulances, backlogs, care, and doctors and dentistry (“A, B, C, D”) as evidence that she was taking action on the workforce.2“I have listened to why people say they are leaving the NHS, or what is holding them back from offering more services, and I am responding,” she said.But the Our Plan for Patients document has been criticised for not setting out a long term workforce plan,3 and health leaders said Coffey’s speech failed to fill in the gaps.Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers said, “On…
Read Original Article: Health secretary must tackle NHS workforce and pay or face “painful winter,” leaders warn »