“Needs Healthier Staff”: An Essential Strategy for Fixing NHS Performance
The UK spends billions every year training, developing, and recruiting staff for the NHS. This eye-watering amount grows year on year. So, are we getting value for money for this huge investment and is the NHS performing well? When we think of NHS performance, we tend to look at metrics such as waiting times or access to treatments. These numbers make for grim reading. In Accident & Emergency, for example, only 70% of patients in Scotland are currently seen and sorted within four hours—down from 95% a decade ago. But what do we mean by ‘high performance’ in healthcare? Is it hitting a target, or is it delivering safe, compassionate care day after day? Trending upwards however is NHS staff sickness absence. Scottish Government data show that 6.4% of NHS Scotland staff are currently off sick—that’s over 10,000 people. So, we have a more expensive service, with deteriorating performance, delivered by sicker staff. Performance, it seems, is inseparable from staff wellness. ...