Health and social care workforce planning and development (WP&D) is an area that concerns all healthcare managers and practitioners. Their services employ, directly and indirectly, up to one in ten working people. The English National Health Service (NHS) pay bill, for example, accounts for 60% (£65.4bn) of healthcare expenditure; significantly more if undergraduate and postgraduate health and social care education and training costs are included. Health and social care staffing can be historical and irrational; e.g., the NHS general practitioner (GP) to patient ratio (in populations with similar demography and morbidity) range from 1:1224 to 1:1958 and hospital-based ward teams have between 10% to 50% registered nurses. Over- or under-staffed and imbalanced care teams have serious service-quality and cost implications, underlined in recent UK failing-service inquiry reports, and job satisfaction, staff education/training, and ultimately staff retention, are jeopardised by poor WP&D.

In short, there's never been a more important time for arming workforce planners and analysts with sound methods and accurate data.