My hon. Friend is right, and I will touch on the removal of bursaries later.
A huge amount of effort has been required to try to fix this mess. There has been progress in the NHS, but it is too little and too slow. It does not include social care and deals only with the immediate context. Many of us in this House are here to challenge the position that the existing so-called responsibilities are clear and robust enough for use by the Government and the health and care system, and for the public to have confidence that the Government can be held to account—now and in future, since the pressures on the system will continue to grow and change.
Yesterday, many of us met nursing staff, having been brought together by members of the Royal College of Nursing, who are all passionate about patient care and public safety. I am moved by their advocacy for the profession, patients and society. I also feel their desperation in the situation they face, trying to keep people safe in challenging environments. Given that professionals have been raising the alarm for decades, hopefully our demands for an end to the boom-and-bust cycle in the workforce will be met.
Even the High Court recognises how vague the current powers and duties are. The legal dispute between the Secretary of State and junior doctors over their contract resulted in a judicial review in 2016. The Court judgment said that, as stated in the National Health Service Act 2006, the objective of “protecting the public”, with a duty on the Secretary of State to take appropriate steps, leaves
“considerable leeway to the Minister as to ways and means”
of running the service.
Anyone who looks at the content of the law can see clear holes and gaps. In addition to the Secretary of State having no explicit responsibility, we have other problems with the duties and power of the national guidance. For example, Health Education England is the organisation responsible for developing our workforce, but its hands are tied because it does not have sufficient legal powers or funding to invest properly in the educational provision needed to grow our workforce. HEE can do planning but not supply, which ought to be the responsibility of the Government. The current legal framework is simply not fit for purpose.
Some people might say that Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, should be accountable for not addressing the workforce needs. The development of the long-term plan provides another clear example of the ambiguity and conflicting expectations playing out in practice. In June 2018, the Prime Minister said:
“Growing demand and increasing complexity have led to a shortfall in staff. So our ten year plan for the NHS must include a comprehensive plan for its workforce to ensure we have the right staff, in the right settings, and with the right skills to deliver world class care.”
That was a clear signal of the Government’s commitment that the long-term plan would address the workforce crisis. On publication, NHS England acknowledged significant workforce issues but said that staffing was additional to service planning and was outside the £20 billion financial package that Simon Stevens was given. Again, NHS England does not have any explicit legal duties that relate to the workforce, so it is not obliged to act.
Just last week, Simon Stevens said there is a need for a
“much bigger upturn in the pipeline of new nurses… There has been a big debate about bursaries and their removal, which as we look at the way the student loan system is working, that is clearly back in play as a big question we’ve got to answer as a nation.”
However, the reasons for these supply problems are not within Simon Stevens’s control. They include the reform of higher education for nursing, which has not grown as we were promised. The ability to boost and fund the workforce sits with the Government, and the ambitions set out in the long-term plan will not be met if we do not have trained and qualified staff to achieve those
goals. Although the Government have committed to transforming services, they must also commit to building the workforce we need. To do that, the lack of accountability must be addressed.
A nurse who walks into a shift that is short-staffed has no power to safely and effectively staff services. They have no option but to carry on, yet the buck stops with them when patient care is unsafe. Nurses have no power to recruit more staff, and they rely on Parliament to ensure that the incredible position we find ourselves in is addressed; to fix things not just now, but for the future. I know how heartbreaking it is for a nurse to be unable to give the care they want to. I know the guilt we feel when care is left undone, and the stress of being unable to do our job to the best of our ability. Patients pay the highest price when the number of nursing staff falls too low.
Understanding that the health and social care system is a safety-critical industry should be the starting block for any consideration made by the Government. The Royal College of Nursing and other professional and patient organisations have a clear solution. With cross-party support, they are calling for a legal framework for workforce accountability that sets out who in Government and across the health and social care system are accountable and responsible for workforce supply—recruitment, retention and remuneration.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care should have explicit powers in law for the growth and development of the health and social care workforce across England. Such accountability would ensure that there are enough staff to care for the number of patients, and that there is an incredible and fully funded workforce strategy. These requirements are not an either/or position; we need both. Alongside the Secretary of State’s accountability, there are other ways in which the responsibilities need to filter down across all layers of the health system. Never again would the system be able to sidestep workforce planning when setting a 10-year vision for the future of our NHS. The ultimate aim in clarifying accountability for the workforce at Government level is to ensure that all health and social care services are of a high quality, and that they are equipped to provide safe and effective care to guarantee patient safety. The current pressure faced by the healthcare workforce puts that guarantee at risk.
Successive Governments have missed opportunities to fix the health and social care workforce crisis. Boom-and-bust approaches to workforce supply have been an afterthought, with the focus on glossy new services and sparkly new plans, rather than on worrying about the staff who are needed to deliver them. That has led to a situation in which the system currently defaults to discussing how to fix the workforce gap. We need to plan strategically for what workforce will be needed to deliver the future healthcare services that have been designed to meet the needs of the population.
An opportunity to rectify the workforce crisis is coming right towards us. NHS England and NHS Improvement have finished engagement work on the legislative changes that they feel are needed to make a success of the long-term plan. Their engagement work sets out proposed changes to the remit of the Secretary of State, but currently these legislative proposals are missing crucial accountabilities. It is down to right hon. and hon. Members to expand the proposals when the
law is presented to Parliament. The legislation must include accountabilities for the workforce, because it is too clear an opportunity to miss.
A simple legal change would turn the tide for patients, and support is growing across the political spectrum for a legal fix as part of addressing the workforce crisis. I found myself at a roundtable discussion on this very matter, with a Government Member with whom I share no political allegiance. We found ourselves in full agreement that we must explicitly clarify the responsibility for putting our workforce on a sustainable footing.
As a nurse in Parliament, I commit to seeking the change that is being called for. I hope that others call on Parliament to speak loudly and clearly in adding their voices to ours, and that all right hon. and hon. Members will commit to pursuing change. This is a truly cross-party issue, and rightfully so. There is a crisis and everyone points fingers at others, but ultimately no one is responsible. There are moves to make the system better, but they must be set out in law and strengthened further. There is an opportunity to fix this cleanly and easily. We are not adding burdens, but clarifying mandates. The moment is now—we must commit to ending the workforce crisis once and for all.
2.49 pm