When it comes to funding injections, a £5.9bn chunk of the Autumn Budget is not to be sniffed at. This is the sum that Rishi Sunak announced for the NHS in his most recent Budget Day speech, which will be awarded on top of the £12bn already ring-fenced for NHS England. It’s to be spent on physical infrastructure and equipment to help clear the NHS’s elective care backlog, with £2.1bn earmarked for the improvement of digital technology.
It’s heartening to see the government quite literally putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to investing in the long-term sustainability of the NHS. However, as a doctor with frontline experience working in the NHS, it seems to me that a crucial factor in this equation has been overlooked: staff.
It’s brilliant that more money will be available for MRIs and CT scanners, but we mustn’t forget about the innovative technologies and services that could also help with recruitment and retention. We desperately need our current nurses, doctors, pharmacists, porters, mental health support workers, and more to thrive in their roles to eliminate backlogs, as well as ensure we can amp up recruitment in order to keep pace with predicted future service demand.
To make this possible, a significant chunk of funding should be invested in tackling the underlying causes of NHS staffing shortages. This must involve the harnessing of new digital innovations and solutions to help us reform workforce systems, remove barriers to cross-regional collaboration, and safeguard wellbeing.
Digging down to the roots of today’s shortages
There’s no one factor to which the staffing crisis can be apportioned. However, there is one factor that has, for too long, been paid disproportionately little attention: burnout. This is a condition afflicting tens of thousands of NHS staff, triggered by long term exposure to stress, pressure or uncertainty, and it has been endemic since long before the pandemic.
And current workforce management systems don’t help. Workforce planning currently means staff are unable to have a say in when they are scheduled for shifts and sometimes only get their rotas six to eight weeks in advance. This makes it very difficult to balance an NHS career with family life, personal commitments, or other professional responsibilities and study.
All of this, delivered against the backdrop of huge patient demand, means that more and more staff are burning out. When they do, many drop out of clinical practice or turn to external agencies to achieve the flexibility they want. This is fuelling staff and talent shortages and intensifying pressure on those who remain in the NHS system.
Solutions are desperately needed: can we look to digital innovation to find them?
Betting on digital to beat burnout
The UK is a thriving hub for healthtech innovation. It’s both inspiring and promising to see new solutions on the table that have been built specifically to improve staff wellbeing and retention. The challenge lies in getting them implemented at scale.
Top of the priority list must be the innovations that speak directly to the pain points making working life more exhausting, inefficient or frustrating for staff. For example, although there’s no quick fix for the rigid systems that admin teams are currently restricted by, we can rebuild rostering and temporary workforce solutions from the ground up to give staff more flexibility and autonomy, without ever compromising on safety or planning.
These include innovative digital solutions which, underpinned by AI, empower staff to have a say over their shift timings, when they take their leave, and even which location they work in – all compliantly. Furthermore, properly-integrated automation tech has the potential to eliminate onerous admin tasks, whilst cross-organisational digital passporting of credentials can replace lengthy documentation checks. Importantly, all this is now possible without ever sacrificing managerial oversight or patient care quality.
Digital does not mean dehumanising
NHS staff are the lifeblood of the organisation, and we must invest in the technology and services which will sustain this talent and help them thrive in their careers. But it’s important to stress that digital solutions alone are no silver bullet; they must be embedded in a human-led, collaborative and supportive partnership between providers and NHS organisations. Tech can’t just be parachuted in.
The Chancellor’s billions for MRI scanners and NHS diagnostic tech are most certainly welcome, but it’s essential that these hardwares come with sufficient talent and staff, who have the right experience and level of genuine care, to operate them. And whilst we do need to invest in tech and innovative digital tools, we must prioritise solutions geared towards making NHS careers healthier, happier, and more sustainable. This is the only way that we’ll tackle backlogs and waiting times and safeguard the NHS for future patients.
By Dr Anas Nader, co-founder and CEO of Patchwork Health