Doctors and teachers working together to retain a well workforce

Held at Harris Manchester College, the event was led by Professor Rob Klassen, Rebecca Snell and Dr Nici Sims from the Department, alongside Professor Bee Wee and Dr Sophie Park from Nuffield Department of Medicine, and Sam Harper from OPEN.

The event convened senior academics, policymakers, and sector leaders from across both sectors, including representatives from the Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, the General Medical Council, the National Foundation for Educational Research, and the Health Foundation.

Professor Rob said: “Retention is one of the defining challenges in both education and healthcare.

“While the contexts differ, many of the underlying drivers such as workload, working conditions, and pressures on professional identity and autonomy, are remarkably similar.

“This roundtable demonstrated the value of bringing two often-siloed sectors together to move towards identifying what works, why it works, and where there is real potential for shared solutions.”

Discussions highlighted parallel issues in health and education, including staff shortages, rising workloads, and concerns about burnout.

Participants noted that while both sectors are developing retention and wellbeing strategies, policy development often happens in isolation.

The roundtable was structured around two themes: individual factors such as motivation, resilience, and professional identity; and system-level factors including organisational culture, accountability, and workforce design.

Short provocations from frontline practitioners and senior leaders helped ground discussion in real-world experience.

In the short term, the event surfaced shared drivers of attrition and potential cross-sector strategies.

Longer-term outcomes may include policy briefings, pilot initiatives, and collaborative research proposals, alongside continued engagement between health and education policymakers and researchers.

The roundtable forms part of ongoing efforts to strengthen collaboration between sectors facing similar workforce challenges.