To think this is completely unsustainable

[rpitchfo]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28300148

Headline: We need more nurses..but 1% (300,000 out of a working population of 30,000,000) of our workforce are already NHS Nurses. This doesn't take into account private nurses, HCAs and all manner of social care assistants.

This is apparently 20,000 short of what we need at the present moment. Not even taking into account a rapidly aging population.

How can we have a productive economy if this is the current trend? I've not got any answers, but surely just hiring more nurses where we get into the state that 5% of our workforce population provide care isn't the answer.

p.s this isn't an anti nurse thread, they do a great job.

Are they going to fund 20,000 more student nurses places on courses? I doubt it, and they would take 3 years to train. Where are they going to get them from, and who's going to pay their wages when there's already been job freezes int he NHS due to a lack of funding?

Well as we have an ageing population it makes sense that a greater proportion of our workforce will be needed to care for them i think.

It does make sense, but practically, who's going to fund this?

In the next 20 years the upcoming demographic bulge of UK elderly will be spending their housing equity on health and social care to pay for all the nurses they are going to need.