Keir Starmer’s poignant remark that the NHS must ‘reform or die’ echoes the sentiment of a nation crying out for change. From the widely-criticised 8am appointment booking scramble, to an excessively overworked staff, it’s clear that the NHS is not currently functioning as intended. While the government’s new ten-year plan seeks to fundamentally restructure the NHS and enhance patient care, a key question remains: will it also succeed in improving the wellbeing of its staff?

In recent years, the NHS has faced a growing crisis in staff mental health. A study published in April 2024 revealed that 76% of NHS employees had experienced a mental health condition in the past year, with 69% reporting the lowest morale they had ever felt. Alarmingly, 96% believed that pressure on the NHS is continuing to rise.

This troubling trend stems from a combination of systemic challenges, including chronic understaffing, inflexible working hours, limited autonomy, poor communication and management practices, and a lack of comprehensive support for staff wellbeing.

Whilst the NHS has previously implemented mental health facilities such as their staff wellbeing hubs, created in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and free access to talking therapies and wellbeing apps, these measures have fallen short. With the government’s new ten-year plan, there is hope that more effective and lasting support for staff wellbeing will finally be achieved.

New Workforce Initiatives

The ten-year plan outlines a selection of new workforce initiatives that seek to better staff experience. They have already begun their plan to increase staff hires, having recruited 1700 new GPs between October 2024 and April 2025. These new hires will begin to alleviate the heavy workloads placed on current staff.

The government has also started to cut ‘excessive bureaucracy’ through the Red Tape Challenge and the abolition of NHS England. This streamlining of the workforce goes hand in hand with a plan to empower staff through upskilling programmes. Each member of staff will have their own ‘personalised career coaching and development plan’, helping drive greater growth and autonomy in their roles. They plan to reward the ‘best performers’ with higher pay and give them ‘new freedoms to innovate’ —all grounds for a more motivated and inspired workforce culture.

Finally, the plan details its new workplace wellbeing standards as ‘nutritious food and drink, protection against violence, racism, and sexual harassment and flexible working options’, with employers being required to publish data on these categories every quarter. This reviewing system seems to indicate the start of a more rigorous and preventative approach to staff mental health, if it’s able to achieve in practice what it’s set out in policy.

A wider shift in approach

As well as specific workforce policies, the vast structural changes forecast by the ten-year plan should also improve staff experience. As detailed in the government report, it can be characterised by three major shifts:

1. From hospital to community
2. From analogue to digital
3. From sickness to prevention

These core shifts aim to radically change the daily experience of NHS staff and could act as catalysts towards better mental health.

The first shift, from hospital to community, involves the creation of new ‘neighbourhood health centres’ across the country. Following significant upskilling programmes, more advanced care will be given locally, massively reducing both the amount of hospital appointments and, therefore, the pressure on hospital staff. The creation of these extra health centres will help disperse the volume of patients in crowded areas, lowering the volume for existing practices and enabling a more manageable staff workload. Hopefully, we’ll also see a deeper integration with the social care sector – a key move to alleviate pressure on the NHS.

The shift from analogue to digital systems will also be a pivotal factor in improving staff experience. The ten-year plan notes how ‘evidence shows as much as 60% of what an individual NHS staff member does can be freed up by technology’. Ambient AI, for example, can perform admin tasks such as listening to and recording patient history which will free up time for practitioners. Not only will this boost productivity, but it will also enable staff to engage more effectively with their patients.

The third shift, from sickness to prevention, will hugely shape staff experience for the better in the long term. The increased use of genomic technology, used to predict the likelihood of diseases from birth, will provide staff with valuable information to spot potential issues early on and take preventative measures accordingly. This principle of prevention will ultimately reduce the amount of intensive, time-consuming healthcare needed, decreasing hospital waiting times and, in turn, decreasing the stress felt by staff.

Pragmatic or overly optimistic?

At a glance, the ten-year plan seems to lay out a roadmap towards improved staff mental health, future-proofing their wellbeing through increased autonomy, preventative reviewing systems and structural changes to the organisation. It is certainly a significant step in the right direction. As a ten-year plan, the report naturally adopts a long-term mindset, however, does it sway too far into optimism?

For some, it looks like the overly ambitious programme avoids dealing with the problem at hand. It fails to address the vast scale and urgency of the staff mental health crisis that we face today. We do not have the luxury of starting from scratch— we must revive a system that is currently in crisis.

Investment into staff mental health services must be increased to sufficiently equip NHS workers with the support they need to adapt to these new changes and upskilling schemes. A preventative approach is a bonus, but a reactive one is a necessity. Only once the epidemic of mental ill-health has been directly tackled in the present can the NHS build for a better future.

The scale of the task ahead is undeniable—but so is the opportunity. The NHS remains a beloved institution at the heart of the UK and we owe it the time, energy, and resources to create an NHS fit-for-purpose, that’s able to provide world-class healthcare for all. If we are to secure its future, we must invest in the wellbeing of the extraordinary people who keep it running every day.

Secretary of Health Wes Streeting says that ‘in the future, we do not just want the NHS to be the country’s biggest employer, but also its best.’ With the right focus and follow-through, that vision is well within reach.