School-leavers could receive on-the-job training as part of an attempt to help address NHS workforce shortages, under plans to allow tens of thousands of doctors and nurses to join the health service via apprenticeships.
Up to one in 10 doctors and a third of nurses could be trained through this vocational path in the coming years under the NHS workforce plan, the PA news agency reported. The NHS’s doctor apprenticeship scheme is due to start in September, where medics in training will be able to earn money while they study.
The concept was first introduced as an alternative route into medicine circumventing the standard undergraduate or graduate university programmes.
Dr Latifa Patel, workforce lead for the British Medical Association, said innovative approaches to education and training are welcome but there were huge question marks over how far medical apprenticeships can solve the recruitment crisis.
Patel said: “We don’t know if medical schools and employing organisations are going to be able to produce medical degree programmes to meet individual apprenticeship needs while also meeting the same high standards of training experienced by traditional medical students.
“We have little evidence on whether the apprentice model will work at scale, and whether employers will want to take the investment risk with no guarantee of a return.
“Ultimately the solution the NHS needs is still the same: a dramatic increase in traditional medical school places, postgraduate training pathways, and essential medical academic staff, all fully resourced and without delay.”
Prof Nicola Ranger, chief nurse at the Royal College of Nursing, said when the formal workforce plan comes this summer the union expects to see a funded expansion of nursing places in university as “anything else will risk jeopardising the position of registered nursing as a graduate profession”.
“All the research shows that patient outcomes greatly improve when in the care of the right number of degree-educated nurses,” she said. “The apprenticeship route must be limited and not come at the expense of university-based nursing graduates.”
Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, has encouraged school-leavers to “earn while they learn” through NHS apprenticeship schemes, telling pupils at her former school that “tens of thousands” of doctors and nurses would be able to train on the job.
Pritchard said that the plan was a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to put the NHS on a sustainable footing” as she cited the 124,000 vacancies across the workforce.
Speaking to pupils at Durham Johnston comprehensive school on Friday, Pritchard said there were more than 350 different roles available, from nursing to biomedical specialists through to peer support workers.
“That is why with more than 124,000 vacancies across the workforce, we know we need to increase training places in universities so more of our brightest and best can train to become doctors or nurses,” she said.
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“But university isn’t right for every school-leaver and some young people want to start earning straight away, while others may decide on a career in healthcare later in life.
“So the NHS is looking to expand apprenticeship schemes over the coming years, offering a different route into the NHS where students can earn while they learn, instead of going through the university route.
“This radical new approach could see tens of thousands of school-leavers becoming doctors and nurses, or other key healthcare roles, after being trained on the job over the next 25 years.”
The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, had promised that the NHS’s long-term workforce plan would be published “shortly”.
PA Media contributed to this report.