Healthcare professions central to the NHS Now adapt training and primary care

Graduates of health professions are increasingly in demand by the labor market and by citizens: the data from the AlmaLaurea Consortium of Bologna on the profile and employment status of graduates (presented on June 10, 2025 at the University of Brescia and reported in these columns by Angelo Mastrillo, professor of Organization of Health Professions at the University of Bologna) speak clearly: employment is increasing from 77% to 85% of registered first-level graduates of our 18 Tsrm Pstrp professions, first in the 2023 ranking of new employees. It is clear that this data correlates to a demand for services provided by these professional figures by a large and growing group of assisted population, especially in the chronic and fragile groups.

The fact that the recorded increase in employed people highlights the tendency to approach the values ​​recorded 17 years ago (in 2007 it was 87.0% to which today it corresponds to 84.8%, with a difference of just -2.2 percentage points), says it all about the current trend, to be accompanied and enhanced with reforms aimed at ensuring this rebirth resonant with the new demand for care despite measure 6 of the Pnrr and Ministerial Decree 77 attributing to our 18 professions a role still limited in Community Homes and hospitals that clashes with what the Local Health Authorities, in the individual territories, show in terms of needs and deficiencies of our 18 profiles.

Moreover, even analyzing in detail the 22 health professions on the latest data of the 2023 graduates, it is noted that the high employment rate in the first 5 places and above the average of 84.8% concerns some of our profiles such as Neuro and psychomotor therapists of developmental age (from 81.1% last year to 89.6%), speech therapists (from 76.9% to 88.1%), Radiology technicians (from 78.6% to 87.8%), Podiatrists (from 66.7% to 87.5%) and then Physiotherapists (who were also among our profiles until a year ago) followed closely by Neurophysiological Technicians) from 81.0% to 86.4% and only after Pediatric Nurses (from 73.5% to 86.7%), Dental Hygienists (from 80.7% to 86.4%) and Nurses (from 77.8% to 85.5%). Following are Professional Educators, Psychiatric Rehabilitation Technicians 84%, Occupational Therapists, Laboratory Technicians and Health Assistants 83%, Prevention Technicians 81%, Obstetricians, Orthoptists, Hearing Aid Technicians and Orthopedic Technicians 79%, without forgetting Dieticians 71%, Cardiocirculatory Physiopathology Technicians 68% and Audiometrist Technicians with 63%.

The sign of this investigation leaves no room for doubt or uncertainty: the need for assistance ensured by the health professions that the Order Tsrm Pstrp represents in a preponderant measure with 18 profiles of the 22 ended up under the lens is unequivocal. A slice of public and accredited health is therefore increasingly required and necessary by the new territorial care assets designed by rules and laws that aim, after the pandemic experience, to make the levels of care increasingly closer to the patient's home in a virtuous relationship between costs, investments, benefits also as a filter against improper access to the acute hospital.

The comparison, with other professional profiles in other areas, clearly rewards our sector. A certain job opportunity after graduation for the many young people who enroll in university schools after high school. The crux at this point is the insufficient training offer compared to the real need and which requires an adjustment of the university schools both in the distribution of degree courses in the various universities (not always able to offer complete coverage of the range of possibilities) and in quantitative terms given that in fact the demand for new employees now regularly exceeds the supply of graduates who leave the Schools.