By Matthew Brown, managing director of giant group
The NHS seems to have been having an even tougher time than
usual recently. Various news reports suggest the service is not only struggling
to stay on top of workloads, but also find additional resources. Topics such as
A&E waiting times and the services ability to cope with demand are the
subject of many debates.
However, while each political party outlines their budget
plans for the NHS, many commentators
have suggested that there’s still not enough investment being made. In fact,
Simon Stevens, the chief executive
of NHS England, recently outlined
an £8billion gap between the funding available to the NHS and what it really
needs to remain in operation. In amongst these budget debates, there have been
suggestions that there needs to be a review
of NHS outsourcing as big contracts fall through, to the cost of both the
supplier and end-user.
You could perhaps be forgiven, then, for thinking that this arena
is unlikely to be a ‘hot spot’ for contractor activity. However, latest insight
from our database suggests that the very opposite is true.
Indeed, we found that of those healthcare specialists
surveyed, 87% were expecting to see their earnings increase or remain level
over the coming year despite the uncertain financial viability of the NHS.
Added to this, almost half (47%) were expecting to find work in hospitals alone
in the next twelve months. Clearly then, contractors are confident that demand
for their services will remain high in the sector, but, given the current state
of the NHS why is this the case?
In my view, the positive contractor sentiment appears to be
indicative of the on-going skills shortages facing the healthcare arena and
perhaps depicts a more realistic insight into the current situation within the
NHS. The sector has long noted a scarcity of talent, and with growing pressure
on the NHS this gap between supply and demand will only widen. It’s perhaps for
this very reason that specialist contract staff remain positive despite some
on-going negative media reports of the state of the healthcare arena.
And while the results of the general election could impact
this demand, for now at least contractors can expect to remain highly sought after.
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