The number of NHS reorganisations in recent years is a key reason for the health service’s struggle to retain staff, a poll has found.
The NHS has been struggling to meet rising demand with a chronic shortage of staff and the results of a survey, published on Friday, suggest that a feeling of constant upheaval is at least partially to blame.
The poll by Wilmington Healthcare UK of more than 2,000 nurses, GPs and hospital doctors across the UK found that 64% blamed staff retention problems on the continuous and “demoralising” national changes in NHS workforce planning that had occurred since 2000.
Wilmington Healthcare’s managing director, Gareth Thomas, said: “Our survey shows that continued changes in workforce planning since 2000 have been a major factor in NHS staff retention problems.
“This is of particular concern as the planned introduction of STPs in April 2017 is set to bring the biggest shake-up to NHS services since the publication of the Five Year Forward View.
Full story in The Guardian, 17 March 2017