Responding to the National Audit Office (NAO) report on NHS England’s modelling for the Long Term Workforce Plan, Royal College of Nursing Director for England Patricia Marquis said:
“This NAO report may not be damning, but this credible intervention asks the government and NHS to ‘revisit’ their ill-founded optimism. Since the workforce plan was published less than a year ago, student nurse numbers have already dropped twice – taking England’s NHS further from safe staffing levels.
"For the Budget this month we called on the government to take the nursing workforce crisis seriously and bring forward investment to increase the numbers of domestic nurses being trained. Today’s NAO report shows just how wrong ministers were to ignore those calls, but there is time to correct this grave mistake.
“As domestic nurse supply stutters and demand for services increases, ministers must produce properly funded policies that bring more people into the nursing profession, whilst finally ending the scandal of over a decade of real-terms pay cuts for NHS workers. At present, the workforce plan is stalling, and serious interventions are needed to make its ambitions a reality.”
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Notes to editors
National Audit Office report - NHS England’s modelling for the Long Term Workforce Plan
