Dr Claire Copeland is the BGS Vice President Workforce. She is a highly experienced senior geriatrician and medical leader and is the Deputy Medical Director for Primary Care and Community Services at NHS Highland.
I read with interest Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England, particularly the proposals concerning the NHS workforce. I appreciated the honest recognition of the challenge posed by an ageing population and the need to go beyond simple headcount metrics. However, the plan was light on detail - especially regarding the scale of workforce shortfalls and the geographical mismatch between workforce distribution and population needs.
The emphasis on getting the basics right - clarifying roles and responsibilities and focusing on skillsets and competencies rather than rigid roles - is a welcome step. So too is the acknowledgement of the toll that current pressures are taking on our workforce. But recognition alone is not enough. Staff need meaningful support to do their jobs well. Wellbeing must go beyond mindfulness apps; it should include access to hot food, proper rest areas, and flexible working as standard - not as exceptions.
As Vice President for Workforce at the British Geriatrics Society (BGS), I’m pleased that our workplan for the coming year includes a focus on wellbeing and resilience. We’ll be exploring issues such as psychological safety, moral injury, burnout, and systemic stressors, with the aim of developing initiatives that foster a supportive and sustainable working environment.
BGS has long advocated for flexible and less-than-full-time working, as outlined in our position statement Flexible Working in Geriatric Medicine. We believe this is essential to retaining a skilled and motivated workforce.
The plan’s commitment to creating 1,000 new specialty training posts over the next three years is encouraging, but it lacks clarity on where these posts are most needed. We know that increasing the number of geriatricians will be vital to delivering this ambitious plan. However, we must also understand and address the bottlenecks in training pathways to ensure we can grow a medical workforce capable of meeting the needs of an ageing population.
We also welcome the development of extended roles and advanced practice for nurses and allied health professionals (AHPs). But these roles must be properly resourced - not only to deliver their core functions but also to support their development. Clear articulation of workforce requirements is essential. To this end, BGS conducted a review of the nursing and AHP workforce through a Freedom of Information request. The resulting report revealed that data quality is poor and fragmented. Without accurate, comprehensive data on the numbers of nurses and AHPs working with older people, we cannot fully realise the benefits of extended roles and advanced practice.
The integration of AI into healthcare has the potential to improve workforce efficiency, but it must be underpinned by a robust, fit-for-purpose digital infrastructure. This infrastructure must support information sharing across the entire system and with partner agencies. While AI can offer significant gains, it is not a substitute for workforce investment - particularly as care continues to shift from secondary to community and primary settings. Without corresponding investment, we risk creating new gaps elsewhere in the system.
In conclusion, the 10 year plan is not quite fit for discharge - but it does have clearly defined goals. Achieving them will require a coordinated, multidisciplinary effort. I look forward to seeing the more detailed workforce plan in due course.
