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Or, why we should stop trying to call nurses back and start helping them stay Every few years the idea of an NHS “reserve” resurfaces. It did during Covid. It’s doing so again now, this time via the Welsh Conservatives and their proposal for an NHS Wales Reserves Service – a bank of retired clinicians and trained volunteers who could be mobilised during peaks of pressure. On the face of it, it sounds entirely sensible. Who could possibly argue with the idea of greater flexibi

A senior partner at KPMG using AI to cheat on an internal AI assessment – and being fined for it – is the sort of irony usually reserved for sitcom writers. When I read the piece in Personnel Today , I laughed out loud. Then I stopped laughing, because beneath the farce sits a very serious question: if AI can generate plausible answers to an AI literacy test, what exactly are we testing? And more broadly, if knowledge is permanently available at our fingertips, what exactly

A LinkedIn post stopped me mid-scroll last week. A candidate, part way through an interview, was asked whether they use ChatGPT. When they said yes, they were invited to type a prompt into their phone there and then. The interviewer wanted to review the output together so they could “objectively understand the candidate’s thinking patterns and interests.” Let’s just pause there. I understand the curiosity. We are all trying to work out how AI fits into recruitment, assessment

Myth-busting productivity guru in action Busting the Myths About Older Workers A recent survey commissioned by the Centre for Ageing Better  found that 51% of UK adults believe job applicants become undesirable to employers by their mid-50s. Thirty-six percent think that tipping point arrives by 50 or younger.Eight percent think 40 is pushing it. (If 40 is now the beginning of the end, we may need to alert half of LinkedIn.) The data, gathered by Opinium from a nationally re

Something interesting happened this week. Three separate pieces landed, from three different directions, all circling around the same issue. None of them were coordinated. None referenced each other. Yet together they create a surprisingly coherent conversation about nursing, retention and what really matters. The first was the latest professionals survey from the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The second was the announcement, reported by Nursing Times, that unions and govern

A recent collaboration between Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust  and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Hartree Centre  has been presented as an exercise in improving rota efficiency. On the surface, that’s exactly what it is: an AI-driven system that replaces manual, spreadsheet-based on-call rotas with something quicker, more balanced and less administratively painful for clinicians. But to see this simply as a better way of doing rotas is to miss the

Much of the current debate about artificial intelligence in healthcare starts in the same place. Workforce shortages, backlogs, rising demand and a system struggling to keep pace. Against that backdrop, AI is increasingly framed as a necessary response to structural pressure rather than a futuristic aspiration. Recent reflections from McKinsey on the emergence and potential of AI in healthcare reinforce this point. Healthcare is described as highly labour-intensive, with pers

Yesterday I joined the first of the Health Foundation’s NHS Productivity Commission webinars, exploring what the NHS might learn from other health systems internationally. The discussion ranged widely. We heard OECD-level perspectives on demographic and fiscal pressure, reflections on the role of artificial intelligence, and detailed insights from cancer services across several countries. All valuable in their own right. But the strongest and most consistent message, at leas

The Main Findings... The other day I sat down for coffee with a small group of senior nurses. It was an informal conversation rather than a formal research exercise, but it was an unusually powerful one. Many of the themes that emerged, captured in the infographic above, will sound familiar. They are well rehearsed in the media and policy debate. But hearing them expressed with such clarity, pain and conviction was a stark reminder that familiarity should not be mistaken for

To view full browser edition click here Healthcare Workforce Intelligence Briefing Designed for busy professionals managing the workforce or those providing staffing solutions into the health sector, this publication curates and summarises some of the most relevant content in a single publication.     Kate Harper In the Media Blogs and Comments News in Numbers Pause for Thought Some information in key publications sits behind firewalls.  Other information requires individuals

A constructive critique of the REC’s intervention on NHS temporary staffing The r ecent press release from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation , authored by Neil Carberry , raises an important and legitimate challenge: whether the Department of Health and Social Care’s instruction to reduce agency use by 30 per cent in the short term represents a blunt policy instrument that risks unintended consequences for patient care. That question deserves serious consideration. I

To view full browser edition click here Healthcare Workforce Intelligence Briefing Designed for busy professionals managing the workforce or those providing staffing solutions into the health sector, this publication curates and summarises some of the most relevant content in a single publication.     Kate Harper In the Media Blogs and Comments News in Numbers Pause for Thought Some information in key publications sits behind firewalls.  Other information requires individuals

It has long been a reflex in UK health policy to dismiss comparisons with the United States. The funding model is different. The employment relationship is different. The politics are different. And in many respects, that instinct is justified. The NHS does not operate in a market in the way US healthcare providers do, nor should it. But when it comes to how healthcare organisations think about, design and deploy their contingent workforce, the US experience is becoming incre

A weekly round-up of curated content on the healthcare workforce. Market context | Policy | Transformation | Strategy | Operations

What the 10-Year Health Plan People report says about workforce transformation and how it sets the scene The People Working Group report supporting the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan arrived quietly, shortly before Christmas, as one of a series of enabling documents rather than a headline act in its own right. That was not an accident. This was never intended to be a fully formed workforce plan, nor a set of operational instructions. It was designed to do something more sub

Why “agility talent” is prized elsewhere, but treated as a productivity problem in the NHS. In banking, IT and professional services, hiring temporary staff (contractors, consultants, interim specialists and contingent teams) is often framed as a smart way to buy scarce skills, accelerate change and stay flexible. In the NHS, “temporary staffing” is more often framed as a cost to be reduced - explicitly linked to productivity and financial recovery targets. On the face of it,

Reflections from a Director of Insight on a Year Working Side-by-Side with Artificial Intelligence. Over the past year, I’ve been asked three questions more often than any others about my use of AI. They usually land in the first five minutes of a meeting, sometimes in a slightly anxious tone, sometimes in a conspiratorial whisper, and occasionally with the energy of someone asking whether I’ve secretly joined a cult. So, here they are — the three questions — and a few reflec

Devolution has become a defining feature of this Government’s approach to public service reform. The direction of travel is clear: decisions about place, economic growth, housing, transport, skills, and public service integration should sit closer to the people and communities they affect. As a result, England is entering a new phase of local governance in which strategic authorities—combined authorities, mayoral authorities, and newly proposed regional bodies—are expected to