Policy Connect publishes Interim Report on Higher Education Commission inquiry into healthcare education and training

Policy Connect has today published the interim report for its ongoing Higher Education Commission inquiry into healthcare education and training. The report provides an overview and analysis of evidence gathered to date on how best to develop and sustain the NHS workforce pipeline. 

The cross-party inquiry, carried out by the Higher Education Commission in partnership with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Health, examines what is required to build a healthcare education system that meets the demands of a changing NHS, and how policy can better support students and professionals across the workforce pipeline. 

Drawing on written submissions to the Call for Evidence, a literature review, and interviews and focus groups with stakeholders across the healthcare education and training sector, the interim report: 

• Reviews the evidence collected across seven thematic areas of healthcare education and training. 
• Identifies emerging themes on what works to develop and sustain a skilled health and care workforce. 
• Highlights gaps and tensions in the current system that risk undermining workforce supply and patient care. 
• Sets out the questions and priorities that will guide the next phase of the inquiry. 

Key emerging themes 

The interim report identifies six key emerging themes from the evidence: 

• Workforce shortages reflect constraints across the training pipeline, including placement shortages, educator recruitment difficulties, and coordination gaps, and are not solely a product of pay and conditions. 
• University financial models for healthcare education are under mounting pressure, with declining fee income and grant funding threatening institutional capacity to deliver and expand programmes. 
• Access to healthcare careers remains unequal across socioeconomic background, ethnicity, disability, and geography, with financial barriers affecting students at multiple points in the pipeline. 
• Student and newly qualified professional wellbeing is directly linked to attrition, with mental health pressures and difficult transitions into employment contributing to workforce losses. 
• Career progression and continuing professional development are inconsistently supported, contributing to turnover and gaps in workforce capability. 
• Effective coordination across government, regulators, NHS employers, and education providers remains inconsistent, with misalignment at multiple points in the pipeline limiting the impact of structural reforms. 

Looking ahead 

The interim report surfaces several emerging implications for policymakers ahead of the final report and its detailed recommendations: 

• The 10 Year Health Plan’s workforce expansion ambitions require urgent attention to upstream training constraints not currently within the Plan’s scope. 
• Financial barriers across the full pipeline must be addressed if widening participation commitments are to produce meaningful outcomes. 
• Structural reforms will have limited impact without investment in shared workforce data infrastructure and stronger cross-system coordination. 
• Retaining experienced professionals requires action on career progression, CPD inequities, and working conditions at the point of qualification. 

Policy Connect would like to thank all those who submitted to the Call for Evidence or participated in interviews and focus groups as part of this inquiry. Having completed three inquiry evidence sessions, the team is currently drafting recommendations ahead of the final report launch in summer 2026.

For more information on the inquiry or the wider work of the EduSkills team, please contact rhiannon.tuckett-jones@policyconnect.org.uk. 

This inquiry is kindly funded by ACCA, University of Derby, and iheed.