The new NHS workforce plan is set to “look and feel really quite radically different”, NHSE chief executive James Mackey yesterday (June 11) revealed.
Mackey made the comment during his keynote speech at the NHS Confed Expo 2025 in Manchester in response to a question asking “whether there will be a workforce plan that comes alongside the 10-year health plan”.
Read more: NHSE on track to miss pharmacy workforce target by 50%
“There will be a workforce plan [but] not alongside the 10-year plan…it’s going to take a bit of time to get that ready and publish,” he responded.
“I think it will be quite different to the last long-term workforce plan,” he said, adding that it is “more likely to be [released] in the autumn”.
“I’d expect that plan to look and feel really quite radically different,” he added.
Workforce shortfalls
The comment comes as the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) last month warned that NHSE is “unlikely to meet its own target to expand the community pharmacy workforce”.
The body estimated that “there will be a shortfall of 16,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) pharmacists by 2036/37”.
Read more: CCA: 540 years needed to meet NHS pharmacy workforce targets
The estimate is despite NHSE’s ambition to increase FTE community pharmacist numbers from 20,500 to “at least 34,000” by that year.
And in October, the CCA revealed that “at current rates of growth, it will take almost 540 years” to meet NHSE’s target of recruiting “34,000 full-time incoming pharmacists” by 2036/37 – up from 20,500 in 2021/22.
