NHS faces ‘crisis’ as doctors who put off retirement depart

NHS doctors who postponed their retirement during the pandemic will soon depart and leave the service in a staffing crisis, a senior clinician has said.

Dr Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said medics who returned to work to help tackle Covid and those who plan to retire soon have no incentive to keep delaying their exit from the profession.

Dr Henderson said a clear recruitment strategy must be drawn up to ensure staff gaps in hospitals are filled.

She made the comments while giving evidence to the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus about the NHS’S ability to cope with pandemics.

“Staff will do what it takes – the problem is what it’s doing to them to do what it takes,” said Dr Henderson. “People who might be retiring imminently and are holding a lot of stuff together are going to bail out unless it’s clear to them that the things they’ve been banging on about for years are going to be addressed.”

At the height of the pandemic, more than 65,000 retired doctors and nurses were asked to return to the NHS.