Millennials will fuel NHS workforce shortage by demanding shorter hours and gap years, report warns

The NHS needs almost 200,000 more staff to cope with rising pressures as “millennial” workers increasingly demand career breaks and part-time roles, a new 10 year plan warns.

The health service strategy, published today, suggests the workforce will need to grow by close to a fifth unless productivity of the service improves, or decisive action is taken to prevent ill-health.

It says the NHS needs to adapt, to take account of the rising number of health professionals choosing to work part-time, seeing flexible working and career breaks “as a right”.

Prof Ian Cumming, chief executive of Health Education England, said the attitudes of millennials - those born in the 80s and early 90s - were very different to previous generations, with a much bigger focus on “work/life balance”.

And he said the increasing number of women entering traditionally male-dominated health professions such as medicine meant the NHS needed to train far more staff, to cover the numbers working part-time.

The ten-year-plan - the first such workforce strategy to be published for 25 years - follows figures showing the average GP now works four days, down from four and a half days in 2009.

The quango’s forecasts predict similar trends across all groups of health professionals with almost 1,300 extra midwives needed within a decade purely to cover the increasing numbers shifting to part-time work.

Prof Cumming told The Daily Telegraph: “If you look at the baby boomer generation, they expected to work in a job for 30 or 40 years, to progress and end up in a more senior position.”

“When it comes to millennials it is a different picture - wanting to work more flexibly, less than full time, to take career breaks, taking a gap year when they have been working for a few years, and so on,” he said.

“They are more likely to change career or to want variety, not to be tied to the same roles,” he added.

NHS research which fed into the draft strategy details the different aspirations of different generations, and the impact this could have on recruitment and retention.

While the baby boomer generation are described as wanting to be recognised for their achievements, the millennial generation, now in its 20s and 30s, sees “work-life balance as paramount” and do not want to sacrifice their personal life for career success, it says,

The study of 1,400 NHS nurses and midwives, characterises millennials as having been provided with “constant praise and recognition” when growing up - and likely to walk away if they do not feel valued.

The age group - also dubbed Generation Y - expect change and variety from employers, “like to be loved” and will seek employment elsewhere if their standards and needs are not met, the report on staff in the West Midlands found.

“Unlike previous generations they want to be able to adapt their work schedule to their home life and not the other way around,” it states.

“Their home and social life is very important to them and if work, or work-related fatigue begins to impact on their time off they will consider other options for employment.”

Workforce planners said the changing attitudes and the increased number of women in previously male-dominated professions would mean a continued shift towards part-time roles. .

Women now outnumber men in medical school, while two thirds of GPs under the age of 40 are female, and more likely to seek part-time roles, while bringing up children.

Last year a study by the King's Fund found only one in ten trainee GPs intends to work full-time.

Prof Cumming said other traditionally male NHS careers - such as that of paramedic - were now seeing rising numbers of women entering the profession, which would also mean extra numbers would need to enter training.

“Different generations want different things in their working lives,” the document says. “Milllennials often want non-linear careers and they see flexible working with career breaks as a right.”

While the plans set out the need for 190,000 more clinical staff by 2027,  unless the NHS changes the way it works, Prof Cumming said the NHS needed to adapt and take advantage of new developments, such as robotics and artificial intelligence, to increase productivity.

Across medical specialities, the report - now out to consultation - highlights emergency medicine as having the greatest shortages, with almost 16 per cent of posts vacant, while in acute medical services, 14 per cent of posts are unfilled.