[denphone]

Originally Posted by Angua

Hiving services off to a private sector is a problem. Particularly when they then sue for not getting the contract. - This is a huge waste of NHS money and needs to be stopped.

The staffing shortage will continue and get worse with Brexit, until we can train enough of our own Doctors & Nurses, which will be some years away. Then the problem will be keeping them.

Especially since bursaries were abolished.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ries-abolished

The NHS could be short of almost 70,000 nurses within five years, according to a leaked copy of the government’s long-awaited plan to tackle the staffing crisis.

Blaming the government’s decision to abolish bursaries for nursing students, a draft of the NHS people plan says: “Our analysis shows a 40,000 (11%) shortfall [in the number of nurses needed in England] in 2018-19 which widens to 68,500 (16%) by 2023-24 without intervention, as demand for nurses grows faster than supply.”

The plan says George Osborne’s decision in 2015 when he was chancellor of the exchequer to stop paying nursing students’ tuition fees and maintenance grants has led to a huge drop in those applying to be nurses at the same time as the NHS is facing its most debilitating shortage of them in decades.

Scrapping bursaries had proved very damaging and they should be reinstated, the Royal College of Nursing said – a suggestion the document does not address. “Already faced with a dire shortage of staff, ministers compounded the problem by pulling the rug from under tomorrow’s nurses.