IPEM Welcomes NHS 10 Years Plan and Highlights the Key Role of the MPCE Workforce in its Success

IPEM has welcomed the publication of the Government’s 10 Year Plan for the NHS and emphasised how vital Medical Physicists and Clinical Engineers are to its successful delivery. The supporting Workforce Plan, to be published in due course, and the development of implementation plans, will also be key parts of the jigsaw.

However, it warned that sustained investment – and reform - in workforce and capital equipment and infrastructure would be needed, alongside a clear and ambitious action plan with the experts leading the change.

IPEM Chief Executive, Gill Collinson, said:

“IPEM submitted evidence as part of the development of the 10 Year Plan and we are delighted to see that the importance of new and emerging technologies has been strongly recognised. The 10 Year Plan will fundamentally alter the NHS, but it cannot succeed unless Medical Physicists, Clinical Engineers and other Health Scientists are at the heart of its implementation.

IPEM, through our members’ expertise and leadership, is uniquely positioned to support and shape the successful delivery of this 10-year plan to ensure that it realises its ambitions. The detailed action plan for these reforms will be critical to its success or failure. With our strong networks, IPEM can bring partners together to work with the Government and the wider NHS to deliver for patients.

At the most straightforward level, it is clear that Clinical Engineers will be needed to support increasingly complex and integrated medical equipment as it moves from hospital to community. However, the MPCE workforce also has the mathematical, data analysis and scientific computing skills to support health and care transformation as it leans further into integrated AI and genomics. These new technologies are critical to achieving all three of the strategic shifts and Medical Physicists, Clinical Engineers, Computer Scientists and Data Scientists are vital to its safe implementation.”

Turning to how IPEM can contribute to the success of the Plan, Ms Collinson commented:

“As the NHS moves from analogue to digital, the highly specialised expertise of IPEM members must contribute to the national agenda on technology-enabled care, AI regulation, imaging, and diagnostics.

Supporting, training and upskilling the current and next generation of Healthcare Scientists, not least in these new technologies, is something that IPEM is passionate about. We welcome the announcement of a comprehensive curriculum review to identify the future skills needed. We can provide expert input to define the Healthcare Science skills framework.

Similarly, IPEM already helps to set professional, training and accreditation standards and we are keen to explore how we might expand this to support the forthcoming workforce plan. This can help to champion flexible, multidisciplinary, and research-informed career pathways for Healthcare Scientists, including Physicists and Engineers. Creating more exciting career pathways will be crucial to addressing the workforce crisis in Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering and we continue to call on the Government to invest properly in this workforce.

These skills will support the transition to more robotics, AI, wearable and digital diagnostics, but this cannot happen without Medical Physicists and Clinical Engineers to enable safe, personalised and efficient care, by ensuring robust standards for new medical technologies and digital infrastructure are grounded in science and safety.”

It will be important that the system works together, across boundaries, to deliver the ambitions contained in the Plan, added Ms Collison:

“IPEM will elevate the voice of healthcare science in ICB decision-making, service redesign, and local innovation strategies. Our members work across healthcare, academia and industry and these partnerships can turbocharge the technological transformation in healthcare.”

Ms Collinson concluded:

“The 10 Year Plan is very welcome and IPEM is looking forward to playing an active role in turning it into reality. IPEM members will be at the forefront of:

• Data to deliver impact
• AI to drive patient health improvements
• Genomics, predictive analytics, population testing and integrated risk profiling
• Wearable technologies
• Robotics to support and transform care.

To make sure this happens, a growing, sustainable and well trained Healthcare Science workforce must be firmly embedded in healthcare system leadership at all levels to ensure safe adoption of innovations across healthcare systems."