Ireland’s Future Health and Social Care Workforce paper sets out an evidence-based strategic direction for the health and social care workforce for the next 15 years. The paper sets out the vision and long-term plan for the health and social care workforce and focuses on the long-term demand and supply of health and social care workers out to 2040. It covers the entire health and social care sector, including public, private and voluntary. The paper details twenty actions to be taken in the years ahead to address future workforce challenges. These actions sit under five interconnected pillars; Plan, Build, Optimise Performance, Recruit & Retain and Invest. The modelling work informing the paper aligns with broader research, highlighting that if we continue as we are, we will have an insufficient supply of health and social care workers to deliver our health and care agenda. It is important to note that the demand and supply projections set out in this paper are estimates rather than targets. The scenarios modelled are based on the current care pathways and skill mix which may change in the years ahead.
Regarding the key datasets incorporated, the starting stock is the number on the professional register, adjusted for the proportion practising – for medical practitioners, nursing and midwifery and pharmacists, the data used was from the relevant 2023 professional register. The proportion of the workforce in each care area is estimated using HSE census data, regulator data, and assumptions where necessary. For the published workforce projections, these have a base year of 2023 and include historical data up to that point where available and where data quality is sufficient.
This is the first iteration of our workforce planning projections, and the intention is that our modelling work will produce projections for a broader range of professions over time as data access and quality improve. Work is underway to expand the professional coverage of the workforce models to include a wider range of Health and Social Care Professionals regulated by CORU. This includes updating and developing models to incorporate more recent granular data from CORU and identifying parameters requiring further investigation and developing preliminary results. Initially, this will include dieticians, radiographers, radiation therapists, speech and language therapists, medical scientists, podiatrists and physiotherapists. Social Care Workers, also a registered profession with CORU, will be included when they have been regulated long enough for sufficient data to be available for incorporation into the models.
The projections in “Ireland’s Future Health and Social Care Workforce” paper show that population growth and ageing drive increased need. It is important to note that these projections are estimates rather than targets, based on current care pathways and skill mix, which are expected to evolve alongside workforce reforms and digital health transformation. Even with ongoing investment and reforms, the analysis indicates an average annual workforce growth of 1.4–2% to 2040 across key professions to meet projected demand. These projections are useful as they demonstrate the scale of domestic student expansion required to meet our future needs. This analysis allows us to plan a staged increase in student places up to 2030 to allow time for capacity in the higher education system to increase, while increasing supply and reducing our high reliance on foreign educated professionals. For example, by 2035, we anticipate that we will need approximately 1,220 medical interns which means a corresponding increase in the number of medicine student places is required by 2030 to allow for the education lag.
Department of Health officials engage on an ongoing basis with colleagues in the HSE, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that we train enough graduates with the skills necessary to support the delivery of health and social care services and to develop a strategic approach to workforce planning for the health sector. Significant Government investment is being provided to expand healthcare education provision from 2025–2026 as a key part of addressing future supply of healthcare professionals and ensuring Ireland can meet growing healthcare needs.
The Minister for Further and Higher Education recently announced €28.5 million investment in 2026 to support the delivery of more than 1,100 additional healthcare training places over the next three years across medicine, nursing, therapy professions, pharmacy, dentistry. This investment includes a major expansion in Health and Social Care Profession Training Places announced by the Government in 2025, with 461 new places to be delivered in nine priority disciplines by 2028. A further Expressions of Interest (EOI) for priority HSCP disciplines was launched by the Higher Education Authority on 30th April 2026. This provides an opportunity for Higher Education Institutions to propose new training programmes or expand existing programmes in high-priority areas related to the health, disability and education sectors.
