Developments in workforce planning

Patients benefit from continued consultant cover

A report by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) finds that patients have been outcomes and are less likely to be readmitted in units where acute physicians are on call for more than one day at a time, have no other routine duties during that time, do two or more ward rounds per day and are present in the acute medical unit for more than 4 hours for 7 days.

The full report can be accessed via Acute Medicine Evaluation

RCP Parliamentary Briefing Health and Social Care Bill

The Royal College of Physician's February 2012 briefing outlines the RCP's concerns about the Health and Social Care Bill, which became an Act on 27 March 2012, in the areas of education and training, competition, commissioning, integration and quality.

RCP Parliamentary Briefing

The future consultant workforce

A report by the CfWI (Centre for Workforce Intelligence) has stated that the total consultant workforce is set to increase by 60% by 2020 if doctors continue to be trained and recruited at current rates. The report describes a number of future scenarios and CfWI are encouraging contributions to this debate. You can read the report and contribute to the forum at http://www.cfwi.org.uk/resources/leaders-report-shape-of-the-medical-workforce (deadline 30 April 2012). If you would like to add your views to the College’s response, email workforce@rcpch.ac.uk

Liberating the NHS:Developing the Healthcare Workforce

On the 10 January 2012, DH set out a new education and training system, with two central planks – Health Education England (HEE) and the Local Education and Training Boards (LETBs). This document also sets out its changes to the workforce information landscape to support new organisations in undertaking workforce planning and education and training commission. http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/01/workforce-response

The Benefits of Consultant Delivered Care

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges published The Benefits of Consultant Delivered Care in January 2012. The report identified the following key benefits of consultant delivered care:

• rapid and appropriate decision making
• improved outcomes
• more efficient use of resources
• GP's access to the opinion of a fully trained doctor
• patient expectation of access to appropriate and skilled clinicians and information
• benefits for the training of junior doctors

Visit our Consultant delivered care page to read more about the College’s work in this area.

RCPCH response to Health Committee consultation on education, training and workforce planning

In December 2011, the College responded to a Health Committee inquiry into education, training and workforce planning. The submission can be downloaded from our health policy consultations page.

Medical Training Number Recommendations for England

The Centre for Workforce Intelligence (CfWI) has recommended (25 August 2011) that no change is made to either the number of training posts or the current geographical distribution of training places over the next three years, in England. A further review is planned for 2014.

Shape of the medical workforce: Informing medical specialty training numbers

The College is pleased that this recommendation acknowledges its policy outlined in Facing the Future that a package of measures needs to be implemented coherently before decreasing the number of paediatric trainees. These measures include the implementation of service standards, a reduction of the number of in-patient units by approximately 48, with 32 new 14-hour SSPAUs, alongside an increase in the number of consultants by over 50% with increasing use of resident consultants. There also need to be increases in the number of advanced children’s and neonatal nurse practitioners and GPs trained in paediatrics.

The CfWI recommendation was based upon the extensive data that the College was able to provide about workforce numbers both current and future gathered from its workforce censuses and other data sources.

The College looks forward to continuing working closely with the CfWI to develop a sustainable workforce policy for paediatrics.

More about workforce planning

In 2010 The Kings Fund  produced an influential report NHS Workforce Planning – Limitations and possibilities. 

NHS Employers published a discussion paper the Future of the Medical Workforce (PDF, 61KB, 8 pages) in 2007.

Modelling the workforce

The RCPCH works collaboratively with the Department of Health, Medical Education England (MEE) and the Centre for Workforce Intelligence (CfWI) to improve modelling of future supply and demand of trained paediatricians.