Health service chief Amanda Pritchard gives LSBU lecture on NHS future
NHS England Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard gave a lecture about the future of the health service at London South Bank University (LSBU) on Wednesday (February 7).
She was speaking to staff, students and guests during the first of part of a series of talks with leading UK figures being arranged by LSBU’s Chancellor Sir Simon Hughes.
During the lecture, Amanda Pritchard spoke about the importance of the links between the NHS and universities such as LSBU in training more nurses, adding that the health service will continue to expand as more people live longer.
“London South Bank University trains around a quarter of the nurses in London every year, and we are going to need a lot more of them,” she said. “And not just nurses, healthcare professionals of all types, so the partnership between the NHS and institutions like this couldn’t be more important.”
Amanda also praised the LSBU health project which trained barbers in London to measure and give advice about blood pressure to their customers.
“LSBU is proud to be one of the biggest and most valued providers in England of people to work in our vital and much-loved National Health Service,” said the university’s chancellor Sir Simon Hughes.
“We hear today’s loud and clear call from the NHS Chief Executive to LSBU and to other institutes of higher education. To meet ever growing demand, all our communities and our NHS need major increases in the numbers of nurses, midwives and many allied and community health and other social care professionals.”
“Today, on behalf of our great university, I commit LSBU to a growing partnership with the NHS and for LSBU to prepare and train more and more students to be the professionals joining, working and staying in our NHS in the years ahead,” he added.