Staff shortages are now a national crisis

[Confusedofbritain]

Staff shortages across many sectors is now a national crisis surely? I’ve given up expecting anything of this government, but why isn’t Labour beating them with a stick over this?

Some examples which affect me personally….

• Can’t go on holiday due to cancelled flight, cause by lack of ground staff.
• I work for NHS trust and we have closed a ward due to c 50% vacancies. We have plenty of money but can’t spend it. Now competing with other trusts paying increasingly high golden handshakes.
• Tried to book restaurant for Tuesday birthday. Not possible as all places shut Monday and Tuesday due to short staff (esp chefs).
• Poor service when we do go out. Staff look frazzled.
• Can’t get a builder to do an extension. Often not bothering to quote. Builder friend can’t keep labourers and brickies. Paying increasingly high wages but getting poached.
• Window fitter quoted me 2x higher than 2019 (for a much smaller window!) probably because they’re so busy and can’t increase capacity due to lack of staff. So prices have gone up by 100%.
• Long delay in discharge for father from hospital, due to long waits for care package (caused by staff shortages). He was in hospital a lot longer than necessary and declined hugely as result.

It’s largely caused by Brexit, partly people retiring or changing livelihood during Covid…:.but why wasn’t this anticipated and what are we doing about it?

I want to see posters EVERYWHERE encouraging people to consider NHS careers. It’s a rewarding career, but impossible to cope and keep going with so few staff. We are escalating to NHS England constantly, saying we need a national solution. It’s beyond critical, but I’m not confident that there is a national drive to sort this out.

The economic and social consequences of ignoring this massive structural issue will be disastrous!

Absolutely. Also there are no vets, particularly in London. Our clinic has been trying to work with 25 per cent of the vets we need, for at least 18 months now. It means we can't do the much of the rescue work we need to do, and it means that animals are suffering as there are no vets to see them. It's mainly down to Brexit. It's a disaster for animal welfare. The best thing we could do would be to rejoin the EU pronto, but that obviously isn't happening.

Thousands of European NHS staff have left. I dont blame them.

I don’t have a pet, so didn’t realise there is also a veterinarian shortage! Just gets worse.

Will be interested to see more people come on and post about vacancies in their sector.

I think this is an absolute clusterfuck and the government is going to be doing significant damage to our economy if they don’t come up with a national solution pronto!

Why is this? If it's from vets to builders. What jobs are these people doing now?

It's a mess, but it was inevitable with Brexit and Covid has made it worse.

We'll either have to accept more immigration (which so many of the brexiteers were voting to prevent) or we'll just have to learn to live with it and accept longer waiting times, higher prices, poorer service etc.

Technological solutions might help in some sectors in the longer term, but that will take time to implement. Better education, training and support into work for those who are not currently in the workforce might also help, but again, it isn't a quick fix - issues that have been allowed to develop over decades can't suddenly be fixed overnight.

We need to sort out the NHS properly instead of tinkering. The European system is so much better but any hint of " privatisation" is shouted down.

Brexit!! Many of those jobs were filled by European workers and they have gone back to Europe

It's the same in pharmacies. Can't keep full time community pharmacists due to rubbish conditions and pay. Employing locum pharmacists on short term contracts for more than double.

I went on holiday last month in-spite of the press reports the airport was a doddle without delays.

I have waited quite awhile for dental treatment a replacement filling (weeks instead of months).

Yes prices have gone up everywhere for everything.

A meal in a restaurant isn’t a pleasurable experience any more with food being practically thrown at you. Their appears to be plenty of staff around but mainly young and disinterested or older and couldn’t give a you know what and any customer service skills have gone out of the window. Yet food doesn’t taste or look as good, portions are smaller and grumpy miserable staff.

A lot of EU nationals filled these roles, and they were recently asked to leave the country, so....

We need a high wage economy we can't keep importing people that is the definition of a pyramid scheme. We need to make work pay and not working a choice people don't want to make willingly. I salute Brexit and wish they would stop brining in foreign nationals to undercut British workers even in the higher skilled sectors. Immigration drives down wages especially in the lowest paid jobs and this has been known about for years. www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2005/jun/14/politics.money

The UK is in Europe .

@endofagain actually we have an excellent plan to sort the NHS out (NHS long term plan 2019) which many of us are trying to implement through transformation programmes. The basic premise is greater prevention/ self care/ right care at the right time. Also lots of promise in genomics and targeting testing/ earlier diagnosis etc. We have money, but we can’t recruit staff so can’t deliver the transformation and can’t keep core services going. That is the problem.

There is no "European system"! There are lots of countries in Europe. They aren't all the same.

@Whatalovelydaffodil apologies yes they've gone back the EU where they can work and live freely in 26 different countries

I have worked in the NHS since 1974 and done variety of jobs, been through reorganisation after reorganisation. Same old...
I have family, friends and previous colleagues living in France, Spain and Germany. From what they tell me health care provision is way better than here.
I am so glad I am out of it now tbh.

I'm all in favour of a high wage economy and not poaching highly skilled workers from overseas, but if you don't want immigration, what is your solution to the labour shortage? Training up British workers who are currently unemployed is not as simple as it sounds... there are generally complex reasons for long term employment.

Telling employers to pay higher wages won't solve the problem if there aren't enough suitably skilled workers to fill the vacancies. In many cases, it will also push to costs to the point that businesses and other organisations become unviable. AI is the obvious solution in the longer term, but what would you do about the labour shortages that we are facing right now?

And then, just to slow the economy even more we get a Jubilee extra long weekend BH!

I need two major things done in my house, one of them a security issue but the comments I got back about trades’ delay is “jubilee weekend blah blah blah.”

The last BH weekend is at the end of August. I often think it would be nice to have a BH in October when the weather can be nice. That would give us all a break pre-Christmas.

Men in grey suits making decisions for us all again. This govt is rubbish. Wish I hadn’t voted them in but had no idea they would be so dreadful. Bring back true Statesmen/women! We need Statesmen/women which this shower is not.

In answer to your points op:

1. Ground staff - in order to cut costs ground staff were made redundant in the pandemic and found other jobs. It takes months to train new staff and pass security measures. Aviation companies are responsible for the flight situation

2. The NHS is entirely unsustainable, the quicker the public realise we can not possibly continue as we are, the closer will get to a solution

3. Restaurants except a few chains have always been closed here on Monday and Tuesday as it does not make sense to open on quiet days

4. I am afraid service is poor, since the pandemic it has never recovered in my view I agree

5. Builder availability I guess depends on where you live. I found someone to do our garden wall and repairs to a leaking roof, and they came the next day. Similar prices to the bill we paid a few years ago

6. Your window fitter has no reason to charge you 100% more I think I would shop around rather than be fleeced!

7. The social care problems have been rumbling on for decades. I am not sure why you expected your experience to be any different from anyone else's. People need to start planning for old age and taking responsibility for the costs of care. Full stop.

Don't forget the teacher retention crisis with huge numbers leaving (including me) due to awful working conditions and expectations. For a lot of us Covid was a wake up call.

Yep. I wanted to have a low wall and another raises bed built in my garden, people either aren’t interested or are quoting me astronomical prices, more than what I paid to have 3 raised beds built 18 months ago. According to one guy, the price of materials has gone sky high due to brexit.

@endofagain I do agree that their systems work well, however we have far higher rates of lifestyle related chronic disease. Eg we have an obesity crisis and 10% of our NHS budget goes on treating type 2 diabetes and related conditions alone.

The countries you mention don’t face the same challenges as us. We are an unhealthier nation, living longer with chronic health conditions which require ongoing medical treatment.

Every single phone call I make, be it car breakdown, insurance, bank, doctors, council, local businesses, international businesses - just everywhere - still have ‘due to the covid crisis we are short staffed and we are experiencing longer wait times than usual’ on their voicemails. It’s BS

What we need to do is shift the million or so healthy people (I do not include those that are severely disabled) into the jobs vacancies and stop benefits. There is no reason whatsoever why anyone should be claiming benefits now when we have so many jobs available!!!!

Humans aren’t fluid like other assets. Not every job will suit every person and people can’t just up sticks and move to the other end of the country where jobs are due to things like tenancy contracts or home ownership, family responsibilities etc.