By Staff, Agencies

More than 300,000 extra nurses, doctors and other health workers are expected to be employed in the NHS in England over the coming years through radical plans to improve staffing in the health service.

The possibility of cutting the amount of time doctors spend in medical school, driving up the number of home-grown NHS staff and ramping up apprenticeship places are among the ideas to deal with severe staff shortages in the NHS.

The NHS’ first-ever long-term workforce plan has been hailed as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to put staffing in the service on sustainable footing over the next 15 years.

It comes as officials warned that, without action, there could be 360,000 vacancies in the health service by 2037.

Health leaders, who have previewed the details of the plan but have not yet released the full document, claim the strategy will help meet challenges of a growing and ageing population while addressing recruitment and retention issues currently leading to severe staff shortages.

Officials say the plans set out, along with new retention measures, could mean the health service has at least an extra 60,000 doctors, 170,000 more nurses and 71,000 more allied health professionals in place by 2036/37.

Alongside the plan, officials have asked the doctors’ regulator, the General Medical Council [GMC], and medical schools to consult on the introduction of four-year medical degrees, which are five years at present, and medical internships, allowing students to start work six months earlier.

The workforce plan aims to drive up the numbers of home-grown NHS staff as the international pool of health workers is increasingly being drawn upon by other countries.