This finding prompted the National Science Board (NSB) to initiate a study of the long-term workforce needs of the nation and their implications for future policy.
This report addresses the long-term workforce needs of the country in science, engineering, mathematics, and technology fields and concludes that we are underproducing U.S. students who major in S&E fields.
"For economies to thrive in the long term, workforces and families must be healthy.
An exciting component of the Capacity Project is the development of free, Open Source software applications [ 8] that countries can use to track health worker training, certification and licensure; maintain personnel information; model long-term health workforce needs; and inform policy analysis and development related to such factors as recruitment, deployment and retention.
The need for long-term workforce planning and the availability of different approaches (supply, requirements, needs-based) have been stressed by the World Health Organization [ 2, 3], by the OECD [ 4] and recently by the launch of the EU Joint Action on Health Workforce Planning and Forecasting [ 5, 6].
"Our population is growing, so we need to have long-term workforce planning.
Overcoming the barriers to long-term workforce sustainability will require commitment, innovation, creativity and ingenuity.
"The NHS is under immense pressure and it is now time for serious workforce investment and sensible, long-term workforce planning".
In the critical reading above, we outlined some of the reasons that we (and others) contend there may be limits to the effectiveness of the workforce strategy for long-term workforce sustainability.
It might also assist in long-term workforce planning in the NHS.
Long term funding needs to be secured.
