Is the NHS staffed for the future? Is mental health still a cinderella service? Lords to ask experts
The House of Lords Committee on the Long-Term Sustainability of the NHS this week turns its attention to the NHS workforce and mental health services.
The Committee is investigating what changes are needed in the NHS to enable it to meet the challenge of the next 20 years and beyond including providing health care services to an ageing population with an increasingly complex set of long-term conditions.
On Tuesday 1 November the Committee will take evidence in Committee Room 2 of the House of Lords from 10 witnesses across three session. The witnesses will be:
10am – NHS workforce
- Professor Alan Manning, Member, Migration Advisory Committee
- Professor Ian Cumming, Chief Executive, Health Education England
- Professor Wendy Reid, Director of Education and Quality, Health Education England
- Danny Mortimer, Chief Executive, NHS Employers
Questions in this session will focus on how prepared the NHS workforce is for the challenges of the next 15-20 years, the impact of Brexit on the supply of healthcare workers from overseas and what numbers and skills mix will be required to ensure the workforce can support a sustainable health and social care system.
11am – The workforce of the future
- Professor Paul Corrigan, Professor of Health Policy, Imperial College London
- Shirley Cramer, Chair, People in Public Health, Royal Society of Public Health
- Jo Moriarty, Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director, Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King's College London
The Committee will ask the witnesses whether the health and social care workforce is equipped to deliver the Government's plan for greater efficiency and unprecedented levels of productivity and whether the current system is financially viable to support a workforce that can meet increasingly complex health needs.
12 noon – NHS mental health services
- Claire Murdoch, Director, NHS National Mental Health
- Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President, Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Paul Farmer, Chief Executive, MIND
This session will look at the key challenges and issues in the provision and delivery of mental health services, the progress made in delivering the recommendations of the Mental Health Taskforce and whether the ambition of parity of esteem between mental and physical health services can be achieved.
