To think that one of the NHS’s biggest problems is that it’s almost impossible to sack anyone?

Yes

I was in a middle management role in public sector, my boss complained that one of my team was taking ridiculously long time to complete a project, I was basically told to kick her ass, so I tried to manage her and make it clear senior management needed to see progress etc.... next thing I lmow she goes to my boss to complain about me doing this and my boss backs her and I'm in the shit!
I say 'was' in that role as I got out soon after.

Over three decades in public sector here and I often muse on why any of us work hard when we don’t have to. Most of us do work hard in my area.
Managing other people’s complaints about the incompetent slackers is probably the hardest part of my job. I have a set of stock phrases now as I know I fundamentally can’t do much about them. The HR policies would not support me and PIPs are horrendously hard work and often counter productive as the slacker just goes sick or grievance.
Most of our staff are fantastic though.

That’s my experience too, I worked in the NHS for 28 years. The more incompetent or lazy you were the higher you were promoted, especially if you were male it seemed.
The worst manager I ever had the misfortune to work with, went from staff nurse to hospital manager in two years. There he made life nearly impossible by instigating fixed 6 week rotas, including 6 nights, on the staff. If you couldn’t do it then you were forced out. He was clever enough to get the Unions involved and it wrecked a number of peoples lives.

Maybe they're just copying the MP's.
They can get away with anything AND get promoted for it.....

You were lucky to get overtime! Any additional hours we work as recorded as bank and therefore paid at normal rate…….i don’t mean additional shifts I mean where you end up staying 4 hours after your shift end as there’s no one else to cover

I’ve know several people sacked in the public sector over the last 15 years or so. One really recently. It was complicated because the colleague was ok at his job. That made it far more complicated because it really seemed as if this person was having some kind of weird mental health breakdown and clearly there had to be consideration of that person’s previously good record.
The other had a extremely poor attitude and did something absolutely bloody stupid. Very short shrift given. Out in no time although he did try to overturn it, even travelling to London to appeal the loss of his professional registration.

I'm in local government and two of my close colleagues have been let go in the last few years because they couldn't do their jobs. It happened quite quickly.

Absolutely agree
Public sector needs to be brought into the real world

Correct that this is an issue too in higher education. Very generous and slow performance and absence processes heavily weighted in favour of employees. However well-intentioned it means a lot of managers give up trying to manage these problems and those staff just continue, much to the frustration of everyone else. I didn't realize how much quicker and easier it is to address in private firms.

I have always said that you have to practically murder someone on the premises in the public sector before you’re sacked. Very lily-livered.

Honestly and I know that I will be ripped to shreds here, I think that inefficiency is just baked into the model that we have. The NHS is free at the point of use and is managed top down so it’s just full of over management in an attempt to “save resources” (by limiting access), measure stuff and feed information around the system to create more process and HCPs are treated like children with so little agency. In many other systems, the patient is the customer and that means that resources go to where the market is and the systems organise much better around how best to make that process work. As an example, one of my kids recently had an accident needing stitches in France, took them to the emergency department where there was no waiting other than filling in details for the system and got the stitches and various prescriptions, but then a nurse visited us at home to take the stitches out 5 days later. That nurse worked with 3 other nurses as part of a team - they each take it in turns to be on call for scheduling appointments and work the hours that they set between them as part of the team. I got to text them to set up the appointment. Not a manager or a receptionist in sight. Sure, I had to pay 17 euros for the appointment, but it was absolutely immense and worth it. People in the U.K. honestly don’t know what healthcare could look like.

But in terms of public sector work, yes, it’s awful from my experience of the civil service. The sick pay, claims of bullying/discrimination if people are just incompetent, the fact that underperformers are just moved on. The fact that people call their union and they tell them to go off sick. Honestly, it’s madness. In many cases, if you could just pay people out their notice period and get shot of them for good, it would be far cheaper. No one ever really reviews it - I mean, if the team is managing fine with someone off sick for “stress” that is really underperformance, why not just get rid of their job rather than keep them because “they can’t recruit anyone better”. The private sector would do this, but lots of public sector managers don’t actually want to trim their teams.

Restructuring is different to sacking poorly performing individuals

Hmm we have had two admin reviews where people have lost their jobs so no… I don’t think this is true!

I am a GP working 3 days a week (this comes after many years of working 100 hour weeks plus as a junior doctor). I’m also a single parent. I’d love to work more days and could very much do with the money - you do understand that we only get paid for the days we work right? So it’s hardly fair to imply that people working part-time are somehow underperforming or “poor staff” giving a “poor service” as you put it. Just more GP-bashing…

The reason I work 3 days a week is to protect my mental health both for my own sake and also for my patients sake. I have bipolar 1 disorder and the job is extremely stressful with long hours (many of which are unpaid). Excessive stress for me could trigger a bout of depression or even worse, mania. Not sticking to regular times for eating and sleeping etc can do the same. If that happened I would end up on sick leave and unable to work at all which helps nobody.

Not all GPs have bipolar disorder of course. People with bipolar 1 in the U.K. have about a 40 percent employment rate generally. Uou have to remember that we are human beings too with our own issues and problems. Most GPs I know work part-time and for the majority of them, it’s simply because the job has become very intense and stressful, and almost impossible to do “5 days a week” (which will usually result in having to do paperwork on day 6 and possibly day 7 as well, meaning you would never get a real break from work). As well as often having to consider childcare issues (there are a lot more female GPs than in the past). Among GPs it’s basically acknowledged that the job full-time is now undoable due to stress, ridiculous workloads, and long hours. But especially among GPs my age, we are frustrated by it as we would like to be able to work full-time and access a full-time wage. However, working part-time has become the only way to continue working and survive, without risking complete burnout and mental breakdown.

The job was very very different in the past and not nearly as stressful or busy, so you really can’t fairly compare what previous generations did (they were also much better renumerated and had final-salary pensions etc). GPs now are also much more likely to be women who have to consider childcare etc. Not that men shouldn’t have to consider this but in the real world we all know it still tends to fall on women.

It's the entire public sector, sadly.

Plus as a previous poster stated, the bullying now is utterly out of hand. Should you dare raise concerns, however legitimate, about the competence of a colleague or their bullying behaviour, you're the one that ends up being isolated.

Add that to people lying about their experience and qualifications and the general uselessness of HR and the NHS is not a happy place to be right now.

When I joined twenty years ago it was still a good place in general with most departments and teams kind and supportive to each other. I've been horrified to see it deteriorating year on year.

I still believe in the principles of the NHS but whatever it is now, it's not the NHS I once loved.

From my experience, it very much was the frontline staff

So did I. I left eventually after 20 years. Not because of the pay (actually v good), the hours (got paid lots of overtime at a great rate), the bosses or the patients; but because I was sick and tired of working my butt off whilst many around me were lazy arses who knew they could get away with doing nothing all day, ringing in sick when they fancied a day off and arriving late/leaving early.

I now work in the private sector where you would be sacked/disciplined for all this behaviour. Everyone works hard and as a team.

Anyone who works hard in the NHS will 100% feel this way. Those defending either don't work there or are the lazy arses im talking about.

Im fed up with hearing how hard working NHS workers all are, just by default of 'working ' for them. And dont get me started on the bloody clapping 5 years ago 🙄

YANBU. My brother is extremely senior in the NHS, and he would agree with you 1 million %. I’m in utter disbelief at some of what has been ignored it brushed under the carpet for decades! It needs sorting, and absolutely wouldn’t happen in other industries.

Many years ago I was talking to my ex brother in law who was a head of department in a school.

He said that sacking teachers often didnt work because of the shortages of potential replacements who could be as bad if not worse

The first is the obvious issue of not being able to recruit enough suitable people for a lot of posts

I keep hearing about how many graduates with allied healthcare degrees are unable to find work. Does the recruitment process need to be improved?

I work in a hospital and we sacked someone last December. It was hard - had to evidence, use informal and formal proceedings. It means managers can’t just sack people they don’t like but it does mean you have to really want to get rid of someone to put that much effort in.

my own experience (10 years in the nhs and previously private sector), is that you always get a mix of good and bad employees and most are actually pretty hard working. The most dedicated I’ve come across are in an nhs provider. Bring us a major incident and our families come second as we all muck in where needed… yet still there’s so many threads slagging off nhs employees.

I couldn't agree more. I had an underpeforming staff member (they didn't log on at all for 3 days one week (WFH)) and HR told me I had to have a meeting to tell them they were expected to log on and work!!!!

Added to that our part of the NHS has no probationary period so once your in, you are pretty much unable to be sacked. It is ridiculous

It’s a massive problem in Local Authorities too. I speak as a manager who has desperately tried to sack people.

Came on to say this