• The government have commissioned Health Education England to produce a refreshed long-term workforce numbers plan.
• Trusts are currently facing around 100,000 staff vacancies.
• There has been emerging evidence that staff are leaving the service early due to the impact of working through COVID-19.

Responding to the announcement that Health Education England has been commissioned to produce a refreshed long-term workforce numbers plan, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson said:

"We are pleased to see that ministers have begun to heed our, and others', calls to take rapid action on workforce shortages, given the current mismatch between demand and capacity in the NHS, and levels of staff vacancies and burnout. We welcome the emphasis on the importance of long term workforce planning.

"Health Education England is well-placed to undertake this work given their expertise and their ability to act as a convener of a range of different interests in the production of a long term workforce plan.

Producing a long term plan is important but the government then needs to commit the funding required to meet the plan and support NHS employing organisations, training institutions and the wider NHS system to deliver any required increase in staff.

"Producing a long term plan is important but the government then needs to commit the funding required to meet the plan and support NHS employing organisations, training institutions and the wider NHS system to deliver any required increase in staff.

"There is also lots of existing evidence showing that there are already significant shortages in many areas so the government must start investing more in the NHS workforce now. It must use this autumn's spending review to set out how it will respond to the current shortages and any long term needs.

"Moving forwards, this can't be a one off. To deliver high quality, safe, patient care trusts need a regularly updated, fully funded and costed, long term workforce plan and government to regularly report progress against meeting that plan. So we will still be pushing for government to enshrine this type of process in the new Health and Care Bill."