NHS training and staffing are in need of urgent care | Letters
NHS trusts are right behind government ambitions to shift more care of patients from hospitals to the community and to do more to prevent ill health in the first place (Editorial, 8 March).But nobody should be under any illusion that this is going to happen overnight.Despite the recent budget boost for the NHS, finances for hospitals, mental health, community and ambulance services are stretched to the limit.People are the backbone of the NHS, but growing demand and workloads, vacancies and financial pressures have left far too many staff feeling worn out and suffering low morale.This has driven up the rate of people leaving the health service.
Worries about staffing cuts as trusts try to balance their books are going to make an already tough situation even harder for overstretched frontline teams.A healthy nation needs a healthy NHS workforce.To achieve this, the NHS needs to recruit, train and keep the right amount of staff with the right mix of skills in the right places.That – and sustainable social care staffing – is what a plan for the next 10 years and a refreshed long-term strategy for the workforce must address, as trusts continue to work flat out to do all they can to make the most of every pound that goes into the NHS.Saffron CorderyInterim chief executive, NHS Providers I recently retired from psychiatry practice after 42 years in the NHS.
I have seen many reorganisations and cuts reframed as “efficiency savings”,In the 1990s, there was a move to reset community psychiatric care to be largely provided by non‑professional staff at lower cost than the elusive and expensive community psychiatric nurses, occupational therapists and social workers,The results of a well‑conducted trial of the new system against the old showed it to be less effective and more expensive, with marginally worse outcomes,At the time, the enthusiasts were keen to press on but, happily, large amounts of money were not wasted in this way – perhaps because the next round of “efficiency saving” came rolling through,Dr Geoffrey Searle Salisbury As the parent of a newly qualified doctor about to begin foundation year 1 training, I am witnessing first-hand the alarming crisis in medical career progression that threatens the future of our NHS.
Instead of celebrating her medical qualification, my daughter is caught in an anxiety-inducing scramble to build a competitive portfolio for specialty training,The British Medical Association recently highlighted a “significant year-on-year increase in applicants for specialty training places … without a commensurate increase in available positions”,The bottleneck is so severe that many UK-trained doctors face the prospect of unemployment or insecure fixed-term contracts,The UK has “far fewer doctors than equivalently wealthy countries”, according to the BMA, yet successive governments have failed to plan adequately for workforce needs,Our brightest medical graduates are being forced to compete against increasing numbers of international applicants for too few training positions.
We need immediate expansion of specialty training positions and a comprehensive workforce strategy that values and retains the doctors we’ve already trained,Without urgent action, we risk losing a generation of medical talent at precisely the moment the NHS needs them most,Name and address supplied Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section,
UK government refuses to rule out redundancies at Scunthorpe steelworks
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Revealed: Chinese researchers can access half a million UK GP records
Researchers from China are to be allowed access to half a million UK GP records despite western intelligence agencies’ fears about the authoritarian regime amassing health data, the Guardian can reveal.Preparations are under way to transfer the records to UK Biobank, a research hub that holds detailed medical information donated by 500,000 volunteers. One of the world’s largest troves of health data, the facility makes its information available to universities, scientific institutes and private companies. A Guardian analysis shows one in five successful applications for access come from China.For the past year, health officials had been assessing whether extra safeguards were needed for patient records when added to the genomes, tissue samples and questionnaire responses held by UK Biobank
Flat season returns to HQ in pursuit of racing immortality – with a few swallows
After weeks of unseasonably warm temperatures, the only hint of spring as Newmarket opened its doors for a new season here on Tuesday was a small flight of swallows over the Rowley Mile – back from Africa in time for a wet and chilly first day at the Craven meeting. Weather-wise, it felt more like Plumpton in January than the home of Flat racing on the first afternoon of a new campaign.But the conditions could not dampen the sense of opening-day anticipation as the first of 2025’s Guineas hopefuls went to post for their Classic trials on the Rowley Mile, before a potential tilt at racing immortality back here in less than three weeks.The Craven meeting is all about the future, from the unraced juveniles breezing alongside the track in the morning before going under the hammer at Tattersalls a few hours later to the potential Group One winners blowing away the winter cobwebs on a course that staged the first race run under an official set of rules all the way back in 1666.On Tuesday, it was the turn of the three-year-old fillies with Classic aspirations as 10 runners lined up for the Nell Gwyn, including six with an entry in the 1,000 Guineas on 4 May
Handmade balls and no two courts the same: Tudor-era ‘real tennis’ is making a racket in Sydney
With cumbersome equipment and a labyrinthine scoring system, real tennis takes a long time to master – but fans say the results feel ‘phenomenal’“It’s a bit like three-dimensional chess, and it’s much more intellectual than an average sport because it’s so complicated,” Maggie Henderson-Tew says through a wide grin after walking off the court.Amid an explosion of interest in newfangled racket sports such as pickleball and padel, which have found popularity due to their dynamic, speedy and easy to learn styles of play, one Sydney sports club is instead leaning into the past – specifically, the Tudor period.This week, Sydney became home to Australia’s fourth court for “real tennis” – also known as royal tennis – the precursor sport to what would evolve to be modern-day tennis (or “lawn tennis”) and squash.Unlike the low barriers to entry that have seen pickleball and padel gain broad appeal, real tennis’s attraction is in its quirks of tradition, cumbersome equipment and labyrinthine scoring system.“People get absolutely fanatically into it, but it’s incredibly frustrating when you start out until you hit your first good shot, then it feels phenomenal,” says Henderson-Tew
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