Workforce

2023 - Position Statement - NHS Long Term Workforce Plan
We welcome the long awaited NHS Long Term Workforce Plan as genuinely ambitious and an important milestone for both staff and patients. The plan will be successful if it results in the expansion of safe, effective and compassionate care and it leads to more patients being partners in their own care and in the design and delivery of the services they use.

2022 - Position statement - Safe staffing
Safe staffing refers to having enough members of staff with the values and skills to deliver high quality care to patients. Safe staffing is a system wide issue. A trained, competent, and supported workforce with sufficient numbers to deliver high quality patient centred care is an essential component of patient safety. Without an adequate workforce, patient care and safety are compromised. This position statement outlines the views of the Patients Association on safe staffing.

2022 - Consultation response - GMC Good medical practice
The General Medical Council consulted on its core guidance on professional standards, Good medical practice. It sets out the standards of care and professional behaviour expected of all medical professionals registered with the GMC. This was the first up date in a decade to the standards. In our response, we welcome the focus on kind, compassionate care for patients.

2021 - Consultation response - Review of professional regulators
We were invited to complete this questionnaire as part of the ongoing review of professional regulation.

2021 - Consultation response - Regulating healthcare professionals
Responding to proposals to reform how healthcare professionals are regulatied, we argue for stronger involvement of patients in many of the key processes.

2021 - Consultation response - PSA accredited registers
In this response, we give patients' views on how accredited, voluntary registers for healthcare professionals can be valuable, and also how they can be improved.

Latest

Developing GP practice groups

We've been working with patient participation groups in Hertfordshire and West Essex for more than a year now. In this workshop, the team review progress to date.
Patients Association statement on planned strike action by junior doctors

Festive season strikes will strike fear into patients waiting for care. We urge both parties to return to talks.
Understanding changes in primary care: your wider general practice team

In this webinar, we’ll look at some of the new professionals patients may see in general practice, such as social prescriber, paramedic and mental health practitioner.
Changes in primary care, understanding the role of the reception team

We had a great panel join us to talk about the plan to recover access to primary care and talk about the new reception team.

NHS England’s primary care recovery plan responds to Patient Association concerns

Publication of the primary care recovery plan is a milestone in the NHS’s post pandemic recovery. Crucially for patients, much of the plan is about their experience of primary care, and how that can be improved.
Delaying a workforce plan any longer is a failure of both patients and the staff

Failure to announce a long-term workforce plan for the NHS undermines NHS recovery and patient care. Read our statement in response to the Budget.
Research shows patients want more control over how their health data are shared

More than a million people opted out of sharing their GP data when NHS Digital announced its GP Data for Research and Planning programme in 2021. This report explors why patients were so concerned and what should be done to improve confidence.
Letter to the Secretary of State

On 6th January our Chief Executive Rachel Power, and Sir Robert Francis KC, wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care asking him to declare and national incident in the NHS. Here is the text of the letter.
CQC State of Care report shows deteriorating experience for many patients

The Care Quality Commission’s annual assessment of the state of health and social care in England shows the health and care system is gridlocked and unable to operate effectively.
Patients ability to work with health professionals undermined by current crisis

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals practice and support shared decision making. But, as our latest reports lays out, there are many obstacles preventing them for working this way with patients on a daily basis.
Health professionals back patient involvement in their own care, Patients Association survey finds

But workforce crisis prevents patients from participating fully in decisions about their care
The long road to recovery

The number of people waiting for hospital treatment is now 6.1 million, including 300,000 who have been waiting a year. We analyse the elective recovery plan and the integration white paper from a patient point of view.
Act now to protect the NHS

The Patients Association calls on Sajid Javid to prevent ‘catastrophic winter’ in a letter to the Health Secretary
Pandemic Patient Experience II

Our second survey of patients' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.