QNI Response to HEE Consultation on Draft Health and Care Workforce Strategy

The QNI has welcomed the opportunity to provide a response to the HEE Consultation on Facing the Facts, Shaping the Future – a draft health and care workforce strategy for England to 2027.

The QNI comments are chiefly in relation to the ‘Nursing and midwifery’ section in chapter 8 of the draft strategy. The QNI has also answered the 8 questions posed to all respondents. Our response has been developed utilising the intelligence and data from our extensive networks in community and primary care services, education, policy and research.

General Comments:

We welcome the initiative to develop a workforce strategy across the NHS. The document is person-centred in approach and focused on the future needs of workforce and patients.

However we are concerned that the document fails to meet its stated objective to give an ‘all round perspective of NHS workforce strategy’ as it does not adequately address the current and projected future shortfalls specifically in community and primary care nursing services.

The NHS Five Year Forward View has at its heart the ambition to move more care closer to the community, but we do not believe this ambition is adequately reflected in the Draft.

We believe that any workforce plan should clearly acknowledge:

• Current and worsening shortages in community nursing, with specific actions to address these
• The effect of changing skill mix in community teams, and the balance of registered and unregistered staff
• The need for service integration around patient need
• The need for investment in primary care services, particularly General Practice Nurses
• An assessment of CPD funding needs for post registration nurses
• The need for community nurse leadership

You can read The QNI’s full response by downloading the document below.

For further comment about this consultation please contact the QNI press office.