NHS Long-term Workforce Plan

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

As for the A-level point and those people not being able to go on to universities, that is what the different routes are about. The different pathways that we are talking about include nursing associate training places, which we want to see increased to 10,000, and similarly with physician associates. While we all understand that having a university education is a fantastic medical grounding, there are many other ways to get there. I am sure we all have very good examples of fantastic clinicians who did not have a degree.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

I refer to my interest as chair of the General Dental Council. I welcome not only the whole document but the specific commitment within it to increase the number of dental training places by 40% by the beginning of the next decade. Does the Minister accept that simply increasing the number of dentists will not solve the problems of NHS dentistry if dentists decide that it is more lucrative for them to practise privately rather than through the NHS? This is only part of the process. If the solution to dealing with the problems of NHS dentistry is to essentially create a tied class of dentists who have trained and are therefore expected to work in the NHS, I am not sure that this will be sufficient.

I also raise a more general point which is nothing to do with dentistry specifically. Could the Minister tell the House what proportion in any one year of the number of people entering the workforce are expected to go into the NHS? My calculation suggests that they are expecting the figure to go up from 10% of those entering the workforce to 15%. What will incentivise that, and will it be addressed through the various pay processes that we have already referred to?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for the work he does as chair of the GDC. He will know that this is something that is quite close to my heart, given that my better half is a dentist. I completely agree that it is about far more than just the training places. I think the House has heard me discuss this before, but if we are serious about dentists who have been in practice for 10 years setting up their own clinic, maybe in an NHS Digital desert, we must give them guidance and support, as it is quite an ask to do that. We plan to produce and publish a dental plan in the not-too-distant future, in which I hope and trust that a lot of these points will be covered.

The noble Lord is correct; I do not know the exact maths behind it, but we spend roughly 12% of our economy on the health sector and so it is not surprising that roughly that number would be expected to go into the NHS workforce. In some ways, that shows the magnitude of everything we are talking about today. Probably one in eight of all people leaving school will end up in this sector—that really is a number worth thinking about and pondering over. As we all agree, it shows why this plan is timely and why it must be a living document that is continually adjusted as we go forward.