Cleo's Story

Meet Cleo, a 31-year-old from Colchester in the East of England, whose path into NHS healthcare has been blocked by central government workforce planning failures. While the East of England faces staffing shortages across its hospitals and clinics, HM Treasury's spending constraints on Health Education England have artificially limited training places. The trained workers exist, the demand exists, but Westminster has chosen to treat public investment in healthcare training as a cost to minimise rather than as the pathway to getting qualified staff onto the wards. Cleo's story reveals how Treasury budget caps create the very shortages that leave communities underserved. This episode contains strong language and discusses unemployment. Blocked Britain is made possible by listener support.