By Alistair Smout and Sachin Ravikumar
LONDON (Reuters) -The British government on Friday set out a new hiring plan for England's state-run National Health Service (NHS) aimed at tackling staff shortages that have exposed the system to huge pressures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The NHS has endured a winter of crisis and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made cutting patient waiting lists one of his five priorities for the year.
"Today we’re announcing the most ambitious transformation in the way that we staff the NHS in its history," Sunak said in a speech ahead of the NHS' 75th anniversary next week.
"A plan that not only eases the pressures today but protects this precious national institution for the long term."
The NHS has about 112,000 vacancies, a gap that could more than triple by 2037 without action, the health service said in the statement, outlining 2.4 billion pounds ($3 billion) of government investment over five years.
By 2031, the NHS aims to double medical school training places to 15,000, increase by 50% the number of doctor training places and nearly double the number of adult nurse training places.
Since the pandemic, when NHS staff were applauded for their work treating the sick, doctors and nurses have been striking over poor pay amid discontent over inadequate staffing that many say hinders their ability to do their jobs.
The workforce plan tries to address problems such as backlogs in treatment, staff absences, and delays in discharging patients.
Alongside other staff retention measures, the plan will help give the NHS an extra 60,000 doctors, 170,000 nurses and 71,000 allied health professionals by 2036/37, it said.
Sunak said the plan would see the proportion of staff recruited from overseas fall from 1 in 4 currently to 1 in 10.
"It just isn’t right that we don’t train enough people here at home to properly staff our National Health Service," he said.
NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard welcomed "a once in a generation opportunity to put staffing on sustainable footing for the years to come".
Sunak acknowledged that overall waiting lists for treatment will continue to rise into the second half of 2023, though he said the number of people waiting more than 18 months for treatment had fallen, and ambulance response times had also improved.
The plan was welcomed by politicians and health experts, with Richard Murray, head of the King's Fund health policy charity saying it could prove a "landmark moment" but a sister scheme was needed for the broader social care sector.
The opposition Labour Party welcomed the proposals but said they should have been delivered a decade ago.
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