IBMS response: NHS Long Term Workforce Plan

NHS England has set out their strategic direction with the publication of their NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. The plan aims to allow the NHS to make sustainable progress on their core priorities for patients, such as improving access to primary and community care, providing safe and timely urgent and emergency care, and continuing to reduce the COVID-19 backlog for elective care. 

The plan establishes three core principles: "Train - Grow the workforce", "Retain – Embed the right culture and improve retention" and "Reform – Working and training differently".

We welcome these core principles and the recognition of scientists' contributions to the NHS throughout the document - including that scientists are the backbone of the NHS and that our work underpins 80% of all diagnoses. We are also incredibly pleased to see the commitment to increase training places for Healthcare Scientists by 32%.

From our own independent training figures (we are currently on track to issue around 1,200 Certificate of Competences for 2023), we can surmise that close to 400 training places should be considered for biomedical scientists alone.

While the allocation of future training and support for biomedical scientists and other laboratory staff seems to be absent in the breakdown of the figures, we are CURRENTLY SEEKING CLARITY on this from NHS England. 

If the plan sees through its commitment to a 32% increase in training places, this will be a huge step forward for our profession – bringing in over 1,500 biomedical scientists and over 2,600 healthcare scientists a year in total.