Health Care Workers Would Not Do It All Again
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- Published: Wednesday, 28 September 2022 07:49
- Written by Peter Ingle
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As members of the new government declare their intention to deal with the NHS’s problems, including dental access, they would be wise to look at a recent survey from an external source.
One of the constant themes of the dental access crisis is the limited workforce whose numbers have remained unchanged as demand increased. Many of those working will admit to looking for an exit plan from clinical, and in particular NHS, work. As reported in GDPUK the numbers of dentists delivering NHS care has dropped steeply, and there is a likelihood that those remaining are reducing their hours.
Further information reinforcing the alarmingly low morale of British health care workers has come from a new source. The Qatari based World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) has commissioned a YouGov survey into the mood of healthcare workers from six nations. These included the UK, USA, India and Saudi Arabia. Only 35% of those sampled in the UK would still train for a career in healthcare. This compared with 90% in India and 76% in Saudi Arabia.
The UK ranked lowest in a number of areas, including the expectation of increased investment in research. This was expected by 17% in the UK compared to 25% in the USA and 60% in India. Other fields where UK workers had the lowest expectation of support were education and training, and mental health.
One area where the UK did have a high score was in expecting pressure on resources to remain a key trend. This was expected by 70% of UK respondents compared to the USA with 57% and India with 31%.
Summing up, WISH CEO, Sultana Afdhal said, “These findings point to the frailty of the UK’s health system and demand urgent corrective action through increased investment in workforce training and development, as well as a sharpened focus on mental health support and advocacy to ensure staff retention.”
The WISH survey was for the whole healthcare sector, however the situation in dentistry is echoed in a new statement from the BDA regarding the action needed to stabilise NHS dental care. In it, Shawn Charlwood, Chair of the GDPC and Eddie Crouch, BDA Chair, make the point that even when allowing for the limited uptake of the £50 million offered earlier in the year, it was poorest in areas with the worst workforce problems. They go on to quote the recent BDA survey showing that 71% of GDP’s would not recommend a career in dentistry. The NHS statistic that there are over 24,000 dentists providing NHS dentistry, popular with ministers answering questions about access, is put into perspective with the fact that about 15% of these, deliver on average, no more than one course of NHS treatment each month.
There has been a lot of talk about bringing in more dentists from abroad and even of opening new dental schools to generate extra dentists in the UK. Workforce retention though, seems to be a concept that the Minister and NHS England are unfamiliar with. Until they grasp the importance of keeping highly trained team members in dentistry they may as well try to fill a bath with a missing plug.
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