In The Bleak Mid-winter...

Written by Graham Tope on Tue 7th Jan 2003

It's the bleak mid-winter - the festive period is but a distant memory and many of us are battling with colds, the flu or other ailments that make January such a miserable month.

A particularly sick patient is London's health service. One of the greatest problems it faces is the falling numbers of health professionals in the capital. Fifty thousand extra staff are needed according to the Mayor's senior health advisor.

What is the Mayor doing to help recruit - and retain - these extra staff? In his election manifesto he promised to develop a London-wide strategy to recruit nurses and other key staff that would include new approaches to recruitment and training and by providing more affordable accommodation.

But it's nearly three years since he took office and the staffing problem is still acute. London continues to haemorrhage health workers and the Mayor seems to be doing little to stem the flow. High property prices, transport problems and the perceived undesirability of some inner city areas are discouraging nurses and GPs from training and living in the capital.

The Mayor's affordable housing policies are failing to keep health staff in the capital - 79 per cent of nurses who trained in London seven years ago have left according to the British Medical Association, claiming high housing costs as an important reason for them leaving. Four out of ten nursing posts in some key hospital departments are now vacant.

Those nurses that do remain struggle: half already work two jobs to make ends meet.

And a recent survey in the Evening Standard found that 354,600 people are either without a GP or have been transferred from a vacant practice to another doctor who has more patients than he or she can adequately treat. Many GPs are approaching retirement age, so the problem will only get worse unless swift action is taken.

Much more could be done to assist health service workers, including providing assistance with transport and introducing more flexible working practices. The Mayor must also ensure that his affordable housing targets will meet the extra demands on the housing market that new staff would bring - especially as there is not enough to house even the current levels of health workers.

While these should be priorities, the Mayor could also do more to encourage Londoners to adopt healthier lifestyles, and ease the strain on the NHS, by developing initiatives to promote sport at a local level and working with the NHS and schools to promote healthy living. With a bit of encouragement, some of us might manage to stick to our New Year resolutions to live more healthily in 2003!