Government got its NHS workforce plans wrong, say experts

Poor NHS workforce planning a few years ago by the government has led to the current climate of staff cutbacks and redundancies, say workforce experts.

The government should have warned the NHS to start trimming its growing staff back in 2004, the parliamentary health select committee was told at a meeting on 13 December, in the latest evidence session of its inquiry into workforce planning.

John Sargent, a workforce development consultant and former chief executive of the Greater Manchester Workforce Development Confederation, told the MPs that warnings could and should have come sooner.

He said, “The [health] department has an important …