The 'health workforce crisis' and 'the medical manpower problem': New term, old problems

Health Place. 2023 Oct 20;84:103132. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103132. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTThe recent, but overdue, publication of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan marks a welcome investment in the future sustainability of the service. The Plan includes a near doubling of medical and nursing school places, a proposed shortening of medical degrees, growth in 'new roles' including associates and apprentices, reduced overseas recruitment of staff and efforts to boost productivity and retention. While the plan was greeted with enthusiasm by many, criticisms were also numerous. This short opinion piece does not aim to add to the critique, but instead presents an argument for why, in trying to understand the persistence of the 'health workforce crisis' across the world, we might usefully think back seven decades to international efforts to address the 'medical manpower problem'. Here, the manpower concept offers a hugely useful heuristic to think through the contours of time, space and resources that characterise(d) efforts to forecast and anticipate future health needs and, therefore, staff and resourcing. Geographers, I argue, should have far more to say about these conceptual continuities in modes and means of problematisation, as well as their consequences.PMID:37866113 | DOI:10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103132
Source: Health and Place - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Source Type: research