The large number of unfilled NHS job vacancies is posing a serious risk to patient safety, reports BBC News citing a report by MPs. It found England is now short of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives, calling this the worst workforce crisis in NHS history. The report said a reluctance to decisively plug the staffing gap could threaten plans to tackle the Covid-19 treatment backlog. The government said the workforce is growing and NHS England is drawing up long-term plans to recruit more staff.

Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who chairs the Commons health and social care select committee that produced the report, said tackling the shortage must be a "top priority" for the new prime minister when they take over in September. The cross-party committee saw evidence that, on current projections, almost a million new jobs will need to be filled in health and social care by the early part of the next decade. Extra staff would be needed to keep up with rising demand as the population gets older and healthcare becomes more complex and technologically advanced. The health services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have faced similar staffing pressures.

Shazia Imtiaz, General Counsel at the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), said, “The shortage of healthcare staff is, without doubt, a concern. However the skills gap has been growing for some time now, and short-term solutions won’t pay off in the future. Back in 2015, APSCo warned of the retirement cliff approaching for nurses and we’ve seen the impact of this play out, which has only been exacerbated by the pandemic and the UK’s exit from the EU. While there is a need to keep the NHS running now, and agency workers will no doubt play a crucial role during this time, we would also urge the government to consider longer-term workforce planning to limit the chances of another crisis on this scale in the future.”