What innovations (including return to practice) would help attract, recruit, or retain NHS clinical staff? A rapid evidence map.
National Health Service (NHS) waiting times have significantly increased over the past couple of years, particularly since the emergence of COVID-19. The NHS is currently experiencing an acute workforce shortage, which hampers the ability to deal with increasing waiting times and clearing the backlog resulting from the pandemic. The review, focussed on rural and remote areas, describes the available evidence base for innovations (including return to practice) that could help attract, recruit, or retain NHS clinical staff.
The evidence was categorised by areas of interest: return to practice; factors influencing recruitment and/or retention; and interventions or strategies for improving recruitment and retention The evidence was organised into different clinical staff groups working within the NHS: nurses and midwives; doctors, including general practitioners (GPs); dentists; allied health professionals; and mixed groups of health professionals.
Evidence highlights the challenges surrounding healthcare professionals wishing to return to practice particularly regarding “skills fade”. Routes for healthcare professionals to return to practice or training, are well documented but data on their effectiveness are limited.
The effective innovations supporting recruitment and retention were based on research studies conducted within the last 20 years.
A broad range of innovations was identified and categorised into five themes:
- Educational interventions
- Regulatory interventions.
- Financial incentives
- Personal and professional support
- Bundled strategies
The evidence suggested that strategies to improve attraction, recruitment and retention need to be multifaceted, include all the themes and evaluated further.
REM00028