I made this speech when laying an amendment to the secondary education policy letter to ensure that a proper review was undertaken of the Institute to ensure that we maximised its benefit.
Sir this is the first of 2 amendments I am laying on behalf of the Committee for Health and Social Care which are intended to be constructive additions to the propositions we are debating today. We have already circulated the views of the Committee in relation to the 2 models in so far as they overlap the mandate of the Committee and I don’t want to repeat that information here. However, I will make a few key points.
As Members will recall, one of the propositions approved in our policy letter on a Partnership of Purpose, transforming Bailiwick Health and Care, was to direct both HSC and ESC to review the training provision and education provided by the Institute to ensure that it continues to meet the health and care needs and to explore wider range of off and on-island training opportunities.
The reason for this amendment is to build on that proposition. I think it is fair to say that the Committee is concerned that the original proposition may well get lost in all the changes that are likely to be need to be made, whatever model is chosen. In addition, it only covered the Insititute and not the provision of health and social care studies more generally and no time limit set.
According to the World Health Organisation there will be shortage of 12.9m healthcare workers by 2035. It is already estimated there is a shortage of just over 7m.
In, ‘A universal truth: No health without a workforce”, it identifies several key causes. They include an ageing health workforce with staff retiring or leaving for better paid jobs without being replaced, while inversely, not enough young people are entering the profession or being adequately trained. Increasing demands are also being put on the sector from a growing world population with risks of non-communicable diseases (e.g. cancer, heart disease, stroke etc.) increasing. Internal and international migration of health workers is also exacerbating regional imbalances.
That is the stark reality of the situation we face.
Whilst we have sought to address these issues in our policy letter, we are concerned that in the whole lead up to this debate, little attention has been given to the Institute, other than its reporting line. There is a crisis in the UK and beyond in terms of the numbers of qualified health and care professionals at all levels. We are already impacted by short sighted decisions by the UK Government to take away bursaries for nursing trainees and the Brexit decision is thought to have reduced the numbers of foreign nationals moving to the UK. This is already impacting on Guernsey and we have to do something about it now.
ESC has a really important part to play and not just through the Institute. The College of Further Education plays a crucial role as a provider of health and care training. Currently there are 23 Year 2 Level 3 students, around half of whom we expect to go direct to HSC or other care providers and others going on to take a degree in a related subject. IN addition, there have been 35 adult learners on part-time courses in the last 2 years who have been employed with HSC or other health and care providers on-island.
But frankly, we need more than that and I hope that the new T levels will provide that opportunity, with distinct health and social care pathways. As this is a Committee amendment I won’t say where I believe these are best delivered and in any event, this amendment is relevant whatever model is chosen. But, we need to understand what the need is and how it will be delivered, now.
The Committee looks forward to working with the CESC to develop a coherent system for education and training of a health and care workforce that meets the needs of Guernsey which is the purpose of this amendment and I ask members to support it.