YP Comment: NHS must embrace education

WHAT are possible remedies for the National Health Service? One possible prescription '“ education '“ is ignored by pointscoring politicians at their peril. Not only does society need to be better informed about the '¨benefits of healthy living, and how this will assist the NHS in time, but students need to be actively encouraged to pursue careers in medicine, nursing and related disciplines. one estimate says 1.6 million carers alone will be required by 2022.

Will they, however, have the inclination to do so when they hear daily horror stories about hospitals in a perpetual state of chaos because they are so understaffed? And, if this doesn’t put them off, will they have the requisite qualifications when a growing number of lessons are taken by classroom assistants, or supply staff, rather than fully fledged teachers?

As Anne Longfield, the Otley-raised Children’s Commissioner, visits Hull to explore the reasons behind the North-South skills gap, the Government must not ignore the latest warnings from teaching leaders about their own staffing challenges. If the country is train more medical professionals of its own, the expressed desire of most patients, this exercise begins in Britain’s schools, and requires making sure that the relevant universities and teaching hospitals are properly funded.

However it won’t happen if successive Ministers – Labour were just as bad as the Tories – continue to demoralise the medical and teaching professions for not meeting targets set by Whitehall’s meddlers who do not always know best. A healthy dose of joined-up government is overdue.