The BDA welcomes the Health & Social Care Committee’s report into the workforce crisis within the NHS. The BDA and its members have warned the Government for years that the current systems in place are not working. A survey of Dietetic Service Leads in 2020 showed then that 85% of services anticipated the demand for dietetic services increasing in 2021 and believed additional staff and resources will be required to meet the demand.
The report produced by the Health and Social Care Committee has proven them right with the Committee stating that the NHS and the social care sector, including dietetics, are facing the greatest workforce crisis in their history.
Career progression and staff morale are in the top five workforce development issues for dietitians in 2020 and these have not gone away.
This report shows that nearly every single profession within the NHS is suffering from a workforce shortage and the Government’s current workforce planning will not tackle the backlog that has been generated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
While we welcome plans to increase dietetic numbers and the number of courses available to them, the rate and pace of growth is not sufficient and has taken too long to be agreed. We would not be in this position if our calls for workforce investment had been listened to and actioned when we raised it.
We are therefore urgently calling on the UK Government to provide the investment necessary to ensure that Dietitians within the NHS have the resources, career progression, and numbers required to provide the people with the care and support they deserve.
The BDA is ready to support the Government in this and welcome any engagement they may wish to have with the BDA. We’re already proactively working on the issue of pay and training for Dietitians and Dietetic Support workers within NHS England to tackle some of the problems highlighted in this report. However, it is only through decisive action by the UK Government that we can reverse the damage we are seeing in the Dietetic and wider NHS workforce.
