The lHeaolth newsw and analysids to inforom and emwpower NHSn staff and campaigners Urgent calls to fix ‘incoherent’ health and social care staffing A build-up in staff shortages in both the NHS and so - wellbeing lead, told the Health and Social Care select cial care due to mistakes made over the previous committee: “Health and care staff suffered stress and decade by the Conservative government has now led work-related anxiety before the pandemic but it is now to such high levels of burn-out rates and staff continued on page 2... turnover that the services are in danger of not work - ing properly, a cross-party committee of MPs has been told. Also in this issue... The burn-out resulting from chronic workplace stress Mega lab: news blackout at Leamington Spa site? p3 results in some to take time off sick, others to reduce Data grab: GP patient records plan meets resistance p4-5 their working hours, resign or take early retirement, which Bed capacity: hospitals struggle as demand rises p6-7 in turn makes the situation worse for those left. Health visitors: jobs under threat in Staffordshire p11 Dr David Wrigley, the British Medical Association’s Going private: NHS trust takes over Circle Health site p12 https://lowdownnhs.info [email protected] number 47 – 15/06/2021 2/ ...continued from page 1 “Filling registered nurse vacancies with those who are far more serious and we believe the current level of staff not registered nurses is not filling those vacancies,” said burnout and stress presents a worrying risk to the future RCN Acting General Secretary & Chief Executive Pat functioning of the health and care system and safe pa - Cullen. “Acting in this way not only leads to vacancies tient care.” elsewhere but also carries a risk to patient care.” Burn-out is a widespread reality in today’s NHS, noted Although using a deeply flawed approach, long-term the committee; burn-out damages the health of staff, and workforce planning has at least been attempted in the affects care safety and quality. It is linked with high NHS, the latest being the June 2019, the Interim NHS turnover and intention to quit, along with higher levels of People Plan, in social care there has been no such ap - patient mortality in the acute sector. proach. A major driver of burn-out is “chronic excessive work - The social care workforce is “if anything even more load” and the key to tackling it is having the right number fragile than the NHS” the King’s Fund told the Commit - of people, with the right mix of skills across both the NHS tee. The staff turnover rate was estimated to be 30.8% and care system – good workforce planning. by the organisation Skills for Care in 2018/19. Skills for Care estimates that if the adult social care workforce Set to get worse grows at the same rate as the projected number of peo - The committee was told that there were an estimated ple aged 65 and over in the population, then the number 85,000 vacancies in the NHS in England and 112,000 un - of adult social care jobs will increase by 32% (or by filled posts in social care before the pandemic struck. All 520,000 jobs), to around 2.17 million jobs by 2035. predictions show that this is set to get worse: What is now urgently needed, the committee con - The Health Foundation has predicted that the NHS in cluded, is a comprehensive 10-year plan for social care, England is likely to require workforce growth of 3.2% a however the committee noted that it had called for such year over the next 15 years, which “implies a requirement a plan from the government previously, as has the Care of a projected 179,000 additional FTE staff by 2023–24, Quality Commission (CQC), and those in the private and rising to 639,000 additional FTE staff by 2033/34”. voluntary sector of social care, all to no avail. The health thinktank The King’s Fund told the commit - tee the current approach to workforce planning, was “in - Lack of funding coherent” and that funding for education and training was In his oral evidence to the committee Professor Martin “inadequate” with a “reliance on overseas recruitment”. Green of Care England, called for a 10- year plan for so - In written evidence the King’s Fund noted that since cial care that was “aligned on every level” with the NHS the 2012 Health and Social Care Act responsibilities for People Plan and included workforce issues, skills mix, workforce planning had been fragmented and there has support for staff and how to ensure that “we retain as well been “a lack of clarity” at a national level. as recruit the right people”. More recently a number of policy decisions (on, for ex - For both the NHS People Plan and, if forthcoming a ample, immigration, English language testing and student plan for social care, it was made very clear to the com - bursaries) made “improvement harder rather than eas - mittee, that however ambitious the plans to address ier.” workforce issues are, nothing will come of them unless The Government has for many years based workforce they are funded sufficiently. planning on the funds available rather than on the de - The most recent NHS People Plan was widely criti - mand and the capacity needed to cope with that demand. cised for the lack of detail and the lack of funding at - This has been a fundamental error that has led to the tached to the plan. The King’s Fund described the high number of vacancies. People Plan as “another stop-gap that falls a long way The Royal College of Nursing is warning that NHS short of the workforce strategy needed”, and the NHS trusts are now recruiting people without the right qualifi - Confederation said that “too many investment decisions cations to act as registered nurses, despite the risk to pa - have been postponed or clarity has not been forthcom - tients; another outcome of poor workforce planning over ing, especially with the longstanding need to address va - the past decade that has left the country with a shortage cancies”. of nurses. Sylvia Davidson https://lowdownnhs.info [email protected] /3 No answers on delayed Leamington Spa ‘mega lab’ A total, constipated silence from the NHS and ministers Since then the opening has been postponed to “spring” – or shrouds the long-delayed new “mega lab” that was sup - questions of when it might open simply ignored. Dozens of local posed to have opened in Leamington Spa last January as residents who have signed contracts to begin working at the part of the £37 billion ‘test and trace’ system. laboratory have been complaining to Matt Western that they The Department for Health and Social Care has stonewalled – have heard nothing from recruiters – and been left in limbo, without or given misleading answers to questions from local journalists, pay. Some say they have been directed to sign non-disclosure and Matt Hancock has flatly refused to answer parliamentary agreements. questions raised by local MP Matt Western, who has subsequently Now another local newspaper, the Leamington Courier has in - raised his concerns in the local press, warning that: terviewed one of these employees, who wishes to remain anony - “This is a scandal waiting to happen. I have heard from dis - mous but who insists that, contrary to assurances from the DHSC, tressed residents waiting months to start jobs, many completely the lab and its staff will be outside the NHS, and that people on without income. I have heard from scientists who fear lack of reg - universal credit are being recruited to a specific “trainee lab tech - ulation, poorly qualified staff and mismanagement at the facility. nician” role. They also now expect not to start work until the au - “I have heard from NHS groups who are concerned about the tumn “if I even start work at all”. undercutting of existing services, ‘stealth privatisation’ and out - "I have confirmation via e-mail from a staff member at Blue sourcing of vital healthcare assets. Yet the DHSC has ignored let - Arrow (who along with MEDACS is recruiting the staff) that I will ters, emails and questions from the media – which is unacceptable not get an NHS pension or any other benefits relating to working and keeps the public in the dark. with the NHS.” Last December then Test and Trace boss Dido Harding let slip The DHSC in statements to the local press has claimed that that the mega-lab would be run by a private company, Medacs, 200 staff are employed and working at the lab – and that it will with no expertise in medical science or laboratories. Medacs is a eventually create 1,800 jobs. subsidiary of the multinational Impellam Group, chaired by former However the secrecy, the obvious role of private contractors in Conservative Party deputy chair and tax exile Lord Ashcroft. recruiting the staff, the decision to keep the mega-lab separate from the local NHS and the bypassing of the professional body ‘Publicly owned and operated’? and the trade unions gives real grounds for concern that another In January The Lowdown reported the lab scientists’ professional privatised fiasco is under way. body, the Institute of Biomedical Science, warning: John Lister “It is vital that these labs have an appropriate skill mix and in - clude significant numbers of HCPC registered Biomedical and Clinical Scientists. We would not allow unregistered staff to run care in clinical settings such as medicine, nursing or radiography – why are labs being viewed as “different”? “We have professional registration in place for a reason – to protect the public.” By March it was clear that some staff were also being recruited by Sodexo on fixed term contracts to work in the megalab, making no mention of NHS terms and conditions, NHS Pensions, or UKAS accreditation.