• The Health Foundation publishes ‘A Critical Moment’ - its annual workforce report.
• It finds that NHS staffing is failing to keep pace with the level of activity and demand, notably in some critical roles such as GPs and nurses.
• It also highlights continued difficulties with NHS staff retention and stability.
• It argues that international recruitment remains vital to achieving overall staffing numbers, but it is being constrained by broader migration policies and the uncertainties of Brexit.

The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery said:

“We welcome this report by The Health Foundation. It is vital that we continue to shine a light on workforce concerns which remain the number one issue for NHS trusts.

“We will not meet the ambitions of the long term plan for the NHS unless we act immediately to address the challenges we face in recruiting and retaining the skilled staff that we need within health and care services.

We will not meet the ambitions of the long term plan for the NHS unless we act immediately to address the challenges we face in recruiting and retaining the skilled staff that we need.

Saffron Cordery    

"The growing gap between demand and supply of critical health and care roles such as GPs and community nurses is a concern.

“We need more immediate actions to ensure staff feel valued, stay within the NHS and to ensure we can continue to recruit internationally following Brexit.

“The long term plan has acknowledged the scale of these challenges, but we need to see how the NHS and government plan to address these gaps in both the short and long term. The workforce implementation plan will be critical to this. As part of the implementation group, we will work for the sustainable workforce solution that is so urgently needed.”