The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has published the final report of its 2021/22 Health and Care Workforce Assembly.

In 2021/22, the IPPR recruited a workforce assembly – across the NHS, social care, and unpaid care – to define a new vision for health and care work. Through assembly deliberations and further research, it has developed this vision into a 10-point policy plan for the future.

The IPPR’s new report presents the view that England’s health and care sector is in a deep workforce crisis. This, the IPPR argues, is not because the sector has less staff overall. Rather, it’s because of a growing and sustained mismatch between worker-demand and worker-supply, the IPPR claims.

According to the IPPR’s report, a vicious cycle emerged during austerity and worsened through the pandemic. Without transformational productivity gains, this mismatch between activity and demand means greater workload and pressure on each individual health and care worker, the report outlines.

The IPPR summarises that the sector needs a long-term vision for the future. In order to create its 10-point plan for health and care workforce policy in England, the IPPR’s Health and Care Workforce Assembly established five guiding principles for the future:

• Sustainable staffing and recruitment: including symptom relief for today’s crisis – but also a longer-term shift towards long-term planning.
• Fairness, hardwired into health and care: including more equal pay, conditions, and progression, but also freedom from discrimination and prejudice in the workplace.
• A shift from antiquated siloes and hierarchies: and towards a vision of health and care work that is modern, integrated, coordinated and varied.
• The right approach to innovation: including more innovation, but also more opportunities for workers to have a voice, and to see how the gains of innovation benefit them, as well as patients and taxpayers.
• Parity between health and care: including a fairer deal for social care workers, but also support and sustainability for unpaid carers.