A first-of-its-kind national workforce plan for Scotland has pledged to maintain free nurse education and to potentially add more student intakes per year.
In its new strategy, the government said it would invest an additional £27m in nursing and midwifery training over the next three years so that annual spend totals more than £230m.
It said funded places for nursing and midwifery courses would rise by 8.7% in 2022-23 to 4,837, promising increases across all nursing specialities.
Going forward it would “consider the need for further planned increases” in nursing training places for 2024 and beyond.
As part of this, the government said it was “considering the possibility of more than one intake per annum”.
It would also work with stakeholders to determine the feasibility of developing “multi-year intake numbers” for student nurses, rather than releasing training numbers yearly, in a bid to provide “certainty and sustainability to this workforce”.
In the plan, the government flagged its “commitment to maintain a student bursary” for nursing and midwifery, meaning students do not have to pay for their education, unlike their counterparts in England which controversially moved from a bursary to loan model in 2017.
It added that it was also exploring ways to widen access to nursing careers through Open University and apprenticeship models, for example.
The National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care in Scotland is based around five pillars of planning, attracting, training, employing and nurturing the workforce, and includes targets for the short, medium and long term.
It outlined an overall goal to grow the NHS workforce over the next five years by 1% – or 1,800 whole-time equivalent staff – beyond “project required growth”, to increase health service capacity and address patient backlogs built up during the coronavirus pandemic.
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A first-of-its-kind national workforce plan for Scotland has pledged to maintain free nurse education and to potentially add more student intakes per year.
In its new strategy, the government said it would invest an additional £27m in nursing and midwifery training over the next three years so that annual spend totals more than £230m.
“While the Scottish Government’s vision and outcomes are laudable, the document fails to set out a clear plan for how they can be delivered”
Colin Poolman
It said funded places for nursing and midwifery courses would rise by 8.7% in 2022-23 to 4,837, promising increases across all nursing specialities.
Going forward it would “consider the need for further planned increases” in nursing training places for 2024 and beyond.
As part of this, the government said it was “considering the possibility of more than one intake per annum”.
It would also work with stakeholders to determine the feasibility of developing “multi-year intake numbers” for student nurses, rather than releasing training numbers yearly, in a bid to provide “certainty and sustainability to this workforce”.
In the plan, the government flagged its “commitment to maintain a student bursary” for nursing and midwifery, meaning students do not have to pay for their education, unlike their counterparts in England which controversially moved from a bursary to loan model in 2017.
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It added that it was also exploring ways to widen access to nursing careers through Open University and apprenticeship models, for example.
The National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care in Scotland is based around five pillars of planning, attracting, training, employing and nurturing the workforce, and includes targets for the short, medium and long term.
It outlined an overall goal to grow the NHS workforce over the next five years by 1% – or 1,800 whole-time equivalent staff – beyond “project required growth”, to increase health service capacity and address patient backlogs built up during the coronavirus pandemic.
The plan also cited ambitions to expand the social care workforce, with money available for up to 1,800 training for people interested in changing careers to adult social care over the next two years.
Later this year, the Scottish Government will publish, for the first time, projections of required workforce growth across health and social care, which will be reviewed annually.
Other ambitions in the plan:
- Create a network of 1,000 community mental health staff by 2026 including mental health nurses
- Recruit more than 1,500 new staff, including nurses, to national treatment centres by end of 2027
- Achieve goal of 1,000 new health care support workers by the end of March 2022
- Ongoing development and evaluation of a national wellbeing programme for health and social care staff
- Delivering up-to-date and relevant staff training on equality, diversity and inclusion
- Creating and rolling out a new menopause and menstrual health workforce policy for the NHS and social care
- Consider changes in the professional registration of unregistered groups within the social care workforce
- Introduce the Flying Finish initiative across all health boards to help retain older workers
- Setting new annual international recruitment targets focusing on “key areas of shortage”
- Expand role of NHS Academy in providing enhanced skills training to nurse practitioners
In 2019, Scotland passed a landmark safe staffing bill – the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019 – the first in the UK to set out requirements for safe staffing across both health and care services.
However, its implementation was delayed due the pandemic and the legislation is still awaiting roll out.
One of the short-team goals of the new workforce plan for the next 24 months is to bring forward new proposals for the implementation of the law.
Commenting on the new publication, health and social care secretary Humza Yousaf said: “This strategy is designed to embed a new long term approach.
“It commits to understanding the change in demand for services as we recover, rebuild and transform our health service, and how we can achieve a more sustainable, skilled workforce which makes careers in health and social care – at all levels – more attractive.”
However, the Royal College of Nursing Scotland criticised the plan for being “scant” on detail on how nursing vacancies would be tackled and how existing nurses would be retained.
The college was also concerned over the “lack of commitment” on implementing the country’s safe staffing legislation, which the RCN had campaigned for.
Colin Poolman, interim director of RCN Scotland, said: “While the Scottish government’s vision and outcomes are laudable, the document fails to set out a clear plan for how they can be delivered.”
He added: “Our members have been clear that staff shortages, record levels of vacancies and the added pressures of the pandemic are having an impact on patient care and their own wellbeing.
“An urgent timetable for implementation of the Health and Care Staffing Act is essential.”
Source: Nursing Times
