Our response to the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan

Today (Friday 30 June) the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan has been published.

The Plan sets out NHS England and government’s long term approach for the recruitment, retention and development of NHS staff over the next 15 years. Its publication has been long-anticipated by both charities and colleagues across the NHS, being originally expected earlier in 2023, to clarify how the government and NHS will take action to ensure the healthcare workforce will meet the needs of the NHS and patients.

In response to the publication, Rachel Kirby-Rider, Chief Executive of Young Lives vs Cancer said:

“The publication of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan is a welcomed milestone step towards the commitment to deliver a sustainable NHS workforce, but shows that there is a lot of work to be done to address the scale of the challenge ahead.

The Plan now needs to be effectively implemented and crucially, supported by sufficient long-term funding and investment, to deliver the progress needed for our cancer workforce over the course of this Plan and beyond.

Whilst the Plan outlines ambitions for increasing numbers of roles such as clinicians, clinical nurse specialists and psychologists over the long term, we need to see further details on how this will ensure we have a specialist children and young people’s cancer workforce that is adequately resourced to meet their unique needs.

We’re pleased to see the Plan highlight the importance of having access to support workers. This shows the value that colleagues including our Young Lives vs Cancer social workers bring, and the crucial role they will continue to play, in the care of children and young people with cancer.

Together with CCLG, Young Lives vs Cancer is ready and willing to work with the government and NHS to ensure that the needs of children and young people with cancer, including workforce needs building on this Plan, are understood and addressed through a bespoke Children and Young People’s Cancer Plan.”