Human: Solving the Global Workforce Crisis in Healthcare

Fact or fantasy, arrogant or naïve were my first reactions on reading the title of Britnell’s Human: Solving the Global Workforce Crisis in Healthcare. Having read the book there are indeed elements of naivety but, there is just so much to take away from this, it is well researched and written in an accessible format providing bite-sized chapters that can be easy to digest and then regurgitated when needed.

The contents of this 20-chapter book will not be the panacea for all the ills that befall the health care workforce in the UK (let alone the world) and I take my hat off to Britnell for being so bold (I like his ardour) as to suggest that 196 pages of fierce passion could get us even close but, there something about this book that caused a road to Damascus moment for me. Surely, says Britnell it cannot be that difficult to solve the problem, after all he says, we managed to sequence the human genome in 2003. He is adamant in almost every chapter that workforce capacity, enabling productivity is key to addressing the workforce crisis and this cannot be argued with, whilst the workforce is often managed and considered at a local level he raises the stakes and asks us to consider this from a global perspective. Our NHS, professional regulators and individual practitioners could learn much from Britnell.