BGS: Workforce

The BGS has published a report from a survey of its members describing the experiences of working through the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. With respondents representing over twenty different professions working in acute, community and primary care, it is believed to be the only survey capturing the full breadth of multidisciplinary health professionals’ experiences caring for older people across the four nations.

Today the British Geriatrics Society (BGS) published a report from a second survey of its members describing their experiences of working through the COVID-19 pandemic during winter 2020-21 and beyond.

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has warned that an ‘avoidable crisis of care’ is looming for older people owing to a combination of staffing shortages and an ageing population.

The BGS has published a report examining data collected by the RCP on the consultant and Higher Specialty Trainee geriatric medicine workforce.

The BGS today launches a new report, ‘The case for more geriatricians: Strengthening the workforce to care for an ageing population’. Geriatricians are specialists in healthcare for older people. While many professions are involved in the care of older people, geriatricians provide leadership of geriatric medicine services, particularly focusing on those patients with frailty and complex long-term conditions. This publication reveals significant variation across the UK in the number of geriatricians available to care for older people. The report indicates that while there are 282 geriatricians for approximately every million people over the age of 65 years old in London, there are only 96 for a similar population in the East Midlands. This means that there are parts of the country where the lack of geriatricians results in older people waiting longer to receive a level of care that is inferior to what they would expect and to what their clinicians would wish to provide.

Today, 30 June 2023, the much anticipated NHS Long Term Workforce Plan was published. This plan sets out how the NHS will address existing vacancies and meet the challenge of rising demand for healthcare by increasing recruitment and retention of staff over the next 15 years. The plan describes the significant investment in training and upskilling the workforce that will be needed to meet current needs and an ageing population. It also highlights new ways of working, which will make greater use of technology.

The BGS has published a new report 'The state of the older people’s healthcare workforce'. The findings in this report were gathered following analysis of a survey of the BGS membership.