Sajid Javid under fire from MPs over NHS staffing shortages

The UK health secretary has come under fire for failing to spell out exactly how many doctors and nurses the NHS will need in the future, as he admitted a plan to recruit more general practitioners by 2024 was not on track.

In his first appearance before the health select committee since his appointment in July, Sajid Javid said he hoped to outline the service’s workforce requirements for the next 15 years by the spring. He confirmed that a separate plan on tackling the backlog in non-urgent operations would be unveiled by the end of November.

Committee member Jeremy Hunt, Javid’s predecessor-but-one at the health department, quoted an estimate by the Health Foundation, a charity, that a further 4,000 doctors and 18,000 nurses would be needed if England’s NHS was going to deliver around 30 per cent more elective activity by 2024-25 than it was before the pandemic, to clear a waiting list that now stands at 5.7m people.

He pointed out that there are 93,000 vacancies across the NHS, and complained that last week’s Budget contained “absolutely zilch” for Health Education England, the body responsible for recruitment and training of clinical staff.

“Can you not see that there is a problem in the system at the moment of accountability, because the government won’t publish the numbers of doctors that we think we’re going to need in 10, 15, 20 years time?” Hunt asked.

“We have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not we’re training enough doctors and nurses for the future. And that means that it’s very, very difficult for us to hold you to account as to whether you’re doing your duty in terms of what the long term needs of the NHS are”, he said.

Javid admitted that he was “not yet” able to state the size of HEE’s settlement. However, he agreed “a better approach” to long-term planning was needed, and said he had asked the organisation to examine demographic, technological, educational, economic and behavioural changes in order to assess the service’s future needs over “a 15-year horizon”.

Insisting he was “very comfortable with more accountability and transparency”, Javid noted that the health and care bill currently going through parliament placed a duty on him as secretary of state “to make a regular report on the workforce system at least every five years”. 

Hunt pointed out that the select committee and around 50 leading health organisations had asked for an amendment to the bill that would give Health Education England a statutory duty to publish “two-yearly independent estimates of the numbers of doctors and nurses that we’re going to need over the next 5, 10, 15 and 20 years, speciality by speciality”. Javid told the MPs he was “happy to engage” with the suggestion.

Asked whether the government would fulfil a pledge for an additional 6,000 GPs by 2024-25, Javid pointed to “the record number of students in medical schools” after a cap on numbers had been lifted, and the importance of international recruitment. But he added: “I’m not going to pretend that we’re on track when clearly we’re not.”