Education is essential for implementing the NHS workforce plan

We are currently in one of the most challenging and vulnerable phases in the history of the UK National Health Service.1 Repeated publications share the view that our healthcare is in a “state of crisis,”12 including the Darzi rapid investigation of the NHS commissioned after the Labour government came to power in 2024.3 The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has highlighted workforce shortages and suboptimal distribution as contributors to increasing wait times and poor access to care.4 The NHS is the UK’s largest employer, with 1.5 million employees across NHS England alone,5 but in common with many health systems internationally, it struggles to recruit, train, and retain sufficient staff.

NHS England (which cares for over 80% of the UK population) published its long term workforce plan (LTWP) in June 2023.6 The plan promised to be a “once in a generation” opportunity to put staffing on a sustainable footing, stating a bold ambition to deal with the recognised NHS staffing crisis by setting out the biggest recruitment drive in health service history together with a programme of strategic workforce planning over the next 15 years.67

Key to success are the intentions to train more, retain better, and reform not only working practices but also education and training. The scale of ambition is unprecedented, including a doubling of medical school places to 15 000 (2000 of which are planned to be degree apprenticeships), 50% more general practitioner training places, 92% more nursing training places, and 40% more dentistry training places. Although these proposals apply to the NHS in England, expansion strategies have also been produced for Scotland and Wales.

Success at such a scale requires …