The new Government has set out its ambitions for the health service. To make these a reality, it needs to address the workforce crisis at the heart of many of the challenges facing the NHS, as staff issues have the potential to make or break targets set for the health service.
In our new briefing, The King’s Fund has set out tangible, early actions the government can take ahead of impending winter pressures to support the NHS workforce.
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Considering the environments NHS staff work in, it’s clear that many are not designed to make the best use of the skills of staff, or protect their health and wellbeing. The Government can tackle this by introducing minimum standards for facilities, working conditions and work schedules – to include ensuring all staff are provided with adequate spaces and time to take breaks and rest, and where appropriate, giving staff guaranteed access to functioning lockers, bathroom facilities and food and drink.
Work schedules and rotas should be based on realistic forecasting that supports safe shift-swapping, enables breaks, adheres to the Working Time Directive, and takes account of fatigue and staff requests.
Staff wellbeing is fundamental to providing high quality care for patients, but indicators of staff wellbeing have been worsening over recent years, and burnout, stress and poor mental wellbeing are commonplace for NHS staff. The mental health and wellbeing services for NHS staff often make the difference between a person choosing to stay or leave their job. Currently, future funding for NHS staff wellbeing hubs is not guaranteed, and services face closure. The Government should also value and judge NHS leaders on how they look after their staff, in addition to their financial performance, productivity and clinical outcomes. In the way that there are national targets for cost improvement and clearing the backlog, the Government should find ways of giving similar priority to staff wellbeing – for example through improving the NHS Staff Survey engagement scores as a key indicator. Other indicators should include staff experiences of racism, bullying and harassment; resignations due to work-life balance; and the gender pay gap.
Finally, resolving industrial action is clearly an early priority for the new Government. It is crucial that ministers and unions resolve disputes as soon as possible. NHS staff must be appropriately remunerated for their skills, commitment, expertise and contribution.
Solving the myriad issues that combine to create chronic excessive workload, low morale and long-term high vacancies will need far more than what we suggest – but these are some concrete and manageable early steps the new Government can take to bring real change and benefit for the staff that our health service relies on.
Jessica Holden, Policy Advisor, The King’s Fund