ABSTRACT
A report from the Health Foundation identifies one cause for this shortage–poor overall workforce planning: Following on from the report by Sir Robert Francis into the care failings at Mid Staffordshire National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust, published in 2013, national policy focus on staffing levels in the NHS in England has not been robust or consistent. The implementation ran into a number of unforeseen problems, some the effect of uncoordinated government policy across sectors. The document included a call for nurse recruitment to be based on applicant “values” as well as technical skills. Since the 1990s, however, UK governments have turned their attention to professional regulators, partly as a response to scandals where the regulator was seen as inadequate. The Act also proposed the establishment of a new regulator for higher education in the form of the controversial Office for Students. Its task is to promote quality and greater choice for students and to encourage competition within the sector in England.
