NHS will push to recruit UK staff with the organisation’s largest ever training drive
NHS will push for UK staff recruitment with the organization’s largest-ever training campaign to reduce reliance on foreign staff and tackle waiting lists
- The maximum number of places in medical schools in England will be doubled from 7,500 to 15,000
- The plan will allow more students to train as doctors
The NHS will undergo a recruitment drive as part of the “biggest expansion in training and workforce” in its history, Rishi Sunak has announced.
The prime minister said the plan will reduce ‘our dependence’ on foreign staff while helping to tackle chronic NHS waiting lists.
The maximum number of places in medical schools will be doubled from 7,500 in England to 15,000, allowing a greater number of students to train as doctors.
The plan will be fully announced later this week.
But Mr Sunak told the BBC Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show: ‘This week we are going to do something that no government has ever done.
The maximum number of places in medical schools will be doubled from 7,500 in England to 15,000, allowing a greater number of students to train as doctors (stock image)
“It’s going to be one of the most important announcements in the history of the NHS, and that’s to make sure it has a long-term staffing plan so we can hire the doctors, nurses and GPs we need, not just today , but also in the future, to provide the care we all need.’
He added: ‘What it will represent is the biggest expansion in training and workforce in the history of the NHS.’ But he admitted the changes could take up to 15 years for patients to feel the benefits.
Mr Sunak has made tackling NHS waiting lists one of his five priorities. Yet the number of people in England waiting for routine surgery has risen to a record high. Official figures show that 7.33 million people were waiting for operations such as hip and knee replacements at the end of March this year – the highest number since NHS registration started in August 2007.
Mr Sunak said the backlog was partly due to the coronavirus pandemic. He added: “The backlog that was created would always take some time to clear.
“Because of our record investment today, because of the plans we’ve put in place, we’re seeing waiting lists for individual people decrease.
“I always said the general waiting list wouldn’t go down until next year.”
Rishi Sunak told the BBC Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show: ‘This week we are going to do something no government has ever done before’
Mr Sunak, the son of a general practitioner and a pharmacist, described the plan as the ‘cornerstone’ of his government’s vision for ‘a better, more modern healthcare system’, adding: ‘I feel a great responsibility to ensure that ensure that our NHS continues to exist.’
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said “significant investment” would be made “so that we can begin the process of ensuring NHS staff are ready to face the challenges ahead.”
The announcement of the long-term plan for the future of the NHS follows a decision by junior doctors in England to go on a five-day strike next month in a dramatic escalation of their longstanding dispute with the government over pay and staffing.
Members of the British Medical Association will leave from July 13 to 18 in what the association says is the longest period of industrial action in the health service’s history.
Lung cancer could be detected early in up to 9,000 people per year under a screening program that will be rolled out nationwide.
The NHS invites around 325,000 people each year for their first lung scan and offers checkups for current and former smokers aged between 55 and 74. were caught at an earlier stage.