NHSE drops plans to publish a dedicated digital workforce plan
Exclusive: NHS England has confirmed that it has dropped plans to publish a dedicated digital workforce plan which was promised in 2024.
The long-delayed plan was originally expected to be published by the end of 2023, and after it failed to materialise, Dr Vin Diwakar, national director for transformation at NHS England, said in March 2024 that the plan would be published “imminently”.
But in response to a Freedom of Information request from Digital Health News in April 2025, NHSE said that the plan “will now be incorporated in the Long Term Workforce Plan refresh due for autumn 2025″.
It added: “This reflects the direction of the current government and the inclusion of non-clinical professions in NHS workforce planning.”
In March 2024, a NHSE Data Digital and Technology (DDaT) Committee report authored by John Quinn, then chief information officer, confirmed that a “digital workforce roadmap” setting out ambitions for the DDaT and informatics workforce between 2023 and 2028 was “going through its last stages of approval” before publication.
The roadmap was developed between November 2022 and March 2023 in collaboration with more than 350 experts across the health and social care sector, in fields ranging from information technology and data analytics to finance and human resource management.
It set out three main strategic objectives: to develop the profession, grow the capacity of workforce to meet demand, and enable the profession through support, communities and training.
“This is essential for the delivery of frontline digitisation and levelling up the digital maturity of health and care service providers, and addressing the shortfall in digital
skills we require in the future,” the report said.
It adds that the roadmap “will be costed but will require an approved business case which can be accommodated in the 2024/25 business plan to progress in the next year”.
Digital workforce is an ongoing issue for the healthcare sector, with Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust among trusts reporting digital staff shortages.
The 2023 Digital Maturity Assessment survey identified a vacancy rate of 10% for technical DDaT roles, with around 43% of vacancies being unfulfilled for six months or longer and the actual number of vacancies likely to be higher owing to NHS organisations “being reluctant in creating new establishment DDaT posts in the belief of not having enough applicants”.
It is estimated, based on figures from Futuredotnow and Lloyds Bank, that around one in 20 NHS employees are “effectively digitally illiterate”.
A forecasting exercise by the former Health Education England, estimated that the NHS digital workforce would need to increase around 70% from 46,000 whole-time equivalent (WTE) in 2000 to 78,000 WTE by 2030.
In April 2025, Wes Streeting, health secretary, told the the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee that the government is committed to retaining the digital workforce amid the abolition of NHS England and financial cutbacks.
Meanwhile, in a survey by NHS Providers, published in May 2025, 86% of NHS trust leaders said that their organisation is going to have to cut posts in non-clinical teams, including digital, to deliver their financial plan.
