One in 11 workers in England will work for the NHS by 2037 if its workforce plan goes ahead, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
NHS England launched its 15-year workforce plan in June, detailing a massive expansion of training places to create a pipeline of thousands of doctors and nurses.
It aims to increase the number of staff employed by NHS England from around 1.5 million in 2021-22 to between 2.3 and 2.4 million in 2036-37. This would mean workforce growth of between 3.1% and 3.4% per year if targets are met.
The IFS predicts that if these increases are delivered, almost half (49%) of public sector workers in England will work for the NHS, and 9% of all workers in England.
NHS workforce plan
NHS England unveils workforce plan
For comparison, 38% of public sector employees worked for the health service in 2021-22, and 29% in 2009-10. Just 6% of all workers did so in 2021-22.
Such a rapid and major expansion of the NHS workforce will create challenges, however. The IFS argues that this will require an uplift in NHS wages that would need to match or exceed wage growth in the rest of the economy if the service is to attract and retain workers.
Similarly, the NHS would need to invest in more non-staffing elements such as drugs, technology and equipment.
Productivity growth could also be an issue, according to the think tank. NHS England itself estimates that staffing increases in the workforce plan will only meet increased patient demand if productivity can grow by 1.5% to 2% per year.
Furthermore, delivering the plan would require the NHS budget to rise by an average of 3.6% per year until 2037, the equivalent of £50 billion over that time.
Max Warner, research economist at IFS, said the publication of the workforce plan was an “important and welcome milestone”.
“We estimate that the plan might imply average real-terms funding growth of around 3.6% per year for the NHS in England. That is by no means outlandish by historical standards, but would nonetheless require difficult fiscal decisions in the current climate of sluggish growth.
“NHS modelling suggests that even these large staffing increases will only be ‘enough’ to meet future demand if staff productivity can be increased by a highly ambitious 1.5% to 2% per year.
“The risk of having a workforce plan but no similarly high-profile plan for capital, technology or management is that higher spending on staffing squeezes out other vital inputs, and makes those productivity gains all but impossible to achieve.”
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