The Future Health Worker

This book explores the implications for the future health workforce of delivering patient-centred care. It argues that successive governments have focused more on changing the structures of the NHS than on reforming the working practices and cultures of the staff that work within it - yet these issues are critical in determining the quality of healthcare being provided.

Whilst many changes in NHS working practices have taken place over recent decades, they have tended to focus on short-term goals such as improving safety and making access to services more timely and convenient. Far less attention has been paid to how workforce reforms could contribute to equally important characteristics of patient-centred care such as promoting and restoring good health and informing and empowering patients. More fundamental changes to the workforce will therefore be necessary in order to deliver genuinely patient-centred care. 'If you were going to devise a health service, would you encourage tribal divisions between poorly communicating professionals so that they could disrupt patient centred health care? Of course not. The Future Health Worker offers a logical way out of the mess we have created.'

Professor David Haslam, Chairman of Council of Royal College of General Practitioners

'The RCN welcomes this significant contribution... The report highlights that nurses have been at the cutting edge of expanding roles and developing quality patient centred care and clearly signposts the key challenges that lie ahead.'

Beverley Malone, General Secretary of Royal College of Nursing

'The key challenge facing the NHS now is how to get the best from the people who work for it. This means changing traditional patterns of working as well as improving relationships between clinicians and managers. This book gives us a bold vision of how this might be achieved.'

Gill Morgan, Chief Executive NHS Confederation