HEE budget confirmation welcome but we need an NHS workforce plan

17 May 2022

Responding to confirmation of Health Education England's (HEE) budget today, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery said:

"This long overdue announcement on HEE's budget will be welcomed by NHS trust leaders.

"The £500m increase, including an extra £160m to support training to support backlog recovery, is particularly welcome at a time when demands on the NHS are rising.

"But there are challenges ahead.

"With dire warnings from the governor of the Bank of England yesterday, there is a very real risk that rising inflation depletes this – and the wider NHS – budget.

"And despite the best efforts of trusts and their frontline staff to bear down on care backlogs, concern remains about the NHS' recovery for the year ahead, with waiting lists expected to rise further as more people come forward for treatment that was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Trust leaders are committed to the training and developing their staff and they will of course, take seriously HEE's concerns over the potential impact of recovery targets on staff and students' education and training.

"But the simple truth is that the NHS simply doesn't have enough staff at this point, and that significant, sustained action from government will be required to solve this issue. Trust leaders are working incredibly hard and innovating to cut waiting times, but pressures on our existing overstretched staff, and persistent major workforce shortages, are preventing trusts from going even faster.

"We have 110,000 vacancies in trusts alone, high levels of burnout and worrying numbers of staff resigning from the service. We can't keep asking the workforce to simply do more.

"We need a long-term, fully funded workforce plan for the NHS to support HEE's work now and in the coming years."