NHS moves to create more part-time roles

THE NHS has appointed a “head of flexible working” who reports to a “head of improving people practices” in a bid to encourage part-time work in the health service.

The appointments follow warnings from health chiefs that the NHS needs to recruit significantly more staff, because millennial workers do not expect to work the hours their predecessors put in. The head of Britain’s GPs recently said that family doctors should no longer be expected to work full-time.

It comes after John McDonnell, the shadow cgancellor, said NHS staff could work a four-day week as part of Labour’s manifesto pledge to cut down hours. But in the BBC leaders debate on Friday, Jeremy Corbyn contradicted him by saying the policy would not apply to the health service.

Health officials said the move is part of plans to ensure workers could have more flexible careers, and a better work/life balance.

But critics accused the NHS of spending money on “glorified pen pushers”, using money that should be spent hiring front-line staff.

Both the Tories and Labour have pledged to increase spending on the NHS, and to expand its workforce. Labour has promised to spend £6billion more than Boris Johnson on the NHS by 2024, but the Tories say the funding would be eaten up by the cost of implementing a 32-hour work week.

The NHS Interim People Plan, published this year, sets out ambitions to “give people greater choice over their working patterns, help them achieve a better worklife balance and help the NHS remain an attractive career choice”.

Healthcare planners have warned that the NHS needs almost 200,000 more staff to cope with rising pressures.

Jane Galloway, deputy director at the NHS London Leadership Academy, has been given the new job of head of flexible working, reporting to Raj Bhamber, the head of improving people practices.

Sam Packer, media campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “These kind of joke jobs would be funny if it weren’t so typical for the NHS to be wasting taxpayers’ money on glorified pen-pushers.”

An NHS England spokesman said: “Recruiting and retaining world-class staff to stay in the NHS for longer so there are more doctors and nurses to treat patients is a priority of the Long Term Plan and offering flexible working is one of the ways the NHS will achieve this.”