“Between retirements and layoffs, 40,000 fewer doctors are expected in the National Health Service (NHS) by 2024“. This is the alarm raised by the NHS executive doctors’ union, Anaao-Assomed, in a note. As for retirements,” in the three-year period 2019-2021 about 4 thousand medical specialists retired every year for a total of 12 thousand white coats. In the three-year period 2022-2024 about 10 thousand medical specialists will retire. So in 6 years the NHS will lose 22 thousand hospital specialists due to retirement “, underlines Anaao.
As for the dismissals, “the phenomenon of escaping from hospitals is added to the wards”, warns the union that citing one of his studies recalls that “from 2019 to 2021 about 9 thousand white coats left the hospital for voluntary resignations. the trend of layoffs was also confirmed in the following three years, a further 9 thousand doctors would be laid off from 2022-2024 “, highlights the union. Hence the forecast “of an overall loss of 40,000 medical specialists by 2024”.
“The pandemic has made it essential to strengthen intensive and sub-intensive therapies not only from the point of view of the number of beds to be increased but also of the personnel who must be specifically trained in this activity. construction of community hospitals with about 11 thousand beds by 2026. Where to find staff? “, asks the union, which underlines how” the trainees are the lifeline for the NHS “.
“However, those who obtained the specialist training contract in 2020 and 2021 (the scholarships were respectively 14 thousand and 18 thousand), will be able to be used in hospitals only in 4/5 years”, observes the union which instead relaunches as ” in the immediate future it is necessary: to stabilize all the precarious workers formed during the pandemic (9,409 units) and to contract, as far as necessary and possible, that audience of 15 thousand trainees of the last years of specialization who could already be employed to help in hospital activities “.