Doctors deserve ‘better employers’ to improve working conditions, says health secretary

The health secretary has told NHS leaders they must do more to be ‘better employers’ to help create better working conditions for doctors and ease the pressure on the Government.

Wes Streeting was speaking at the NHS Confederation’s Expo conference in Manchester on 12 June when he said it was down to employers, not him, to improve working conditions such as improving flexibility for taking compassionate leave and providing hot food for staff working nights.

As part of a wide-ranging speech on his vision for the renewal of the NHS, Mr Streeting said it was important to agree contracts rather than impose them, so that staff feel like they have ‘real relationships’ with the Government and their employers.

He also praised the role of the NHS’s international staff but said the UK was ‘over-reliant’ on their labour.

Responding to a question about some ‘negative rhetoric’ relating to the reliance of the NHS on international workers, Mr Streeting said: ‘It’s no coincidence that the NHS was founded in the same year that Empire Windrush arrived on our shores.

‘The National Health Service that we see today was built by that generation and many of that generation’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren work in the NHS today.

‘And they have been joined by other migrants from around the world who have come to our country, bringing their skills, their expertise, their care and compassion and if they all left tomorrow the NHS would collapse.

‘With the NHS, as with many other walks of life, our island story has been shaped by migration – it has been a positive thing for our country, it has made a really important contribution to our country so if you’re a member of health or social care staff who have some to the UK from around the world, thank you. We are lucky to have you, we’re grateful that you’re here and the NHS will always be an international workforce and it is stronger for it.’

However, Mr Streeting said there was an ‘over-reliance’ on overseas workers, which he put down to the previous Conservative government who he said decided ‘why bother to train our own staff when we can pinch them from elsewhere’, including from World Health Organization red list countries, which must not be targeted for overseas recruitment – a practice he called ‘unethical’ and ‘immoral’: ‘This country should stand on its own two feet’.

He said the debate about overseas recruitment in the NHS was ‘nuanced’, and that politics in the last decade had struggled to provide nuance.

Mr Streeting said the NHS needed a new long-term workforce plan, saying the one produced during the Conservative government in 2023 ‘didn’t survive contact with reality’ which was ‘frustrating’ because of the level of data and evidence available.

He said it was ‘disgraceful’ that so many GPs were unemployed, and said that he was aware the problem has not been solved despite his decision to open up the additional roles reimbursement scheme funding to cover newly qualified GPs. ‘I don’t think that it’s job done by any means’.

Turning to the resident doctors dispute with the Government around pay, he said his offer was fair but added the debate was not just about money but how resident doctors are treated and their opportunities for career progression, rotations, placements and being able to take leave for their own weddings or for compassionate leave.

So, he called on employers at the conference to make conditions better for doctors, and other healthcare workers, so that their day-to-day working lives are improved.

‘There are lots of things I need to do as the secretary of state to improve the conditions for our workforce, thinking about recruitment and training and career pipelines, pay, and national terms and conditions – but I also need NHS leaders to work with me to be better employers,’ said Mr Streeting.

‘There are some things that the secretary of state can and must do and there are some things where it’s really not my job. It’s not my job to go round making sure we’ve got hot food provision overnight for staff working night shifts, good employers should be doing that.

‘It’s not my job to make sure that when people need time off for compassionate leave, or for their own wedding, that staff are being treated in a way that I would treat any one of my own staff.

‘This is a team effort, it really is. It’s my job to give you the tools to succeed, to fight your corner in government and the media and public, to bring the confidence back about the future of the NHS. And that’s what I’m here to do.

‘The NHS has amazing people, and the NHS will always be a people-based service. Its strength is its people, and it is the people working with government as partners who will be able to achieve something really historic for our country. And, if we get it right, we will be able to be proud for the rest of our lives, just as Attlee and Bevan were in 1948.’

(Image credit: NHS Confederation)