NHS staff shortages could triple in a decade, without a radical boost to recruitment efforts, major thinktanks have warned.
Analysis by the King’s Fund, the Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust suggests the health service could be short of more than 350,000 staff if it continues to lose staff and cannot attract enough from abroad.
On such trends, one in four posts would be vacant, compared with one in eight today.
The think tanks said “worryingly” high numbers of hospital doctors and nurses were taking early retirement, and not being replaced in sufficient numbers.
It follows research which shows just one in 20 trainee GP intends to work full-time, with the average family doctor working just three and a half days.
The report’s authors urged health officials to draw up a credible strategy to recruit and retain staff along side a 10 year plan for the NHS, which is due to be published next month.
Without such measures, waiting lists could grow, and patient care deteriorate, despite a £20bn funding boost planned for the health service, they warned.
Candace Imison, director of policy at the Nuffield Trust said: “The NHS has a woeful track record in ensuring that the health service has the right numbers of staff it needs in all the right places. “This has now reached a critical juncture: unless the NHS Long Term Plan puts in place urgent and credible measures to shore up the workforce both in the short term and in the longer term, it risks being a major failure.
“Solving the acute and systemic problems affecting the healthcare workforce will not be easy, but we owe it to patients, staff and taxpayers to start now.”