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Facing up to the workforce crisis and regulation's future role

A photo of someone receiving their covid-19 vaccination
  • Where are the million extra health and social care workers needed over the next decade going to come from?
  • How can we ensure that workforce data and planning keep pace with demand?
  • What can we do differently to grow our workforce and adapt to new ways of working?

In this Chapter of Safer care for all, we outline the breadth and depth of this problem and restate some of the key statistics to illustrate the issue. Workforce shortages that persist include for roles in nursing, medicine and social work. And it is not just a case of needing to attract and train new workers, we then need to make sure that we can retain them. We believe that a longer-term more sustainable solution (that doesn't just rely on international recruitment which can cause labour supply shortages in other parts of the world) is needed. We need a rethink - can we train regulated professionals faster? Can statutory regulation be speeded up when it is needed? Can we make better use of the unregulated workforce? Read through the chapter to find out more.

Find out more


What would you like to read? We have several versions available. You can download:

There is also a Welsh translation available of front part of the report, including The essentials and the executive summary. You can download it here

Please get in touch (via the email address below) with us if you would like a Word version of the full report.


Get in touch

Contact us if you would like to join the discussion about how we can work together to make health and social care safer for all. You can get in touch by emailing engagement@professionalstandards.org.uk