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!

Well I live in the leafy Cotswolds, where every recent development in my village has been priced to attract second home owners, not locals. So development isn’t the magic solution you think it is.

Second homes are a real issue in rural communities. I live in an entry level house for my village- affordable for families- but I can’t move up the chain to free it up because almost all the housing stock above me is taken for second homes and sits either empty or holiday let for most of the year.

When they built the new estates (and compromised the village flood defences) there was some excitement about new housing stock for villagers. In the end there was none. My house is worth £250,000 and the exact same house on the new estate (but with no parking or garden) went for £450,000. And they got round the need to provide any affordable home by building yet another retirement home (we have eight now for a population of 2,500 people) and promising some units to the council.

Developers shouldn’t be in charge of town planning. If we let local communities be in charge of their own development we’d end up with the houses we need instead of more overpriced mega mansions.

In London and other areas many many doctors and nursing staff are/were not from Europe but outside Europe -without statistics it is wrong to blame brexit (although this may have had some impact). Lockdown forced many to change jobs either through necessity or through choice and has had a big impact on how people think in that they may realise the job they were doing was no longer what they wanted to do! Mumsnet has outside influence and stating one thing is causing it is wrong unless proven with backup statistics.

@Swayingpalmtrees

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

Ah yes, if only we’d all realise how shit it is then it would be sorted.

It’s the same here. Families can’t size up because the new 3- and 4-bed houses they’ve built are either second homes or occupied by rich older people with no children. No affordable housing is being built at all.

22k EU workers left the NHS between 2016 and 2019.
Number of EU workers coming to work in the NHS plummeted in the same period, uncertainty and associated costs being the the main reason.

A health minister was asked this year how many (EU) left and didn't know the answer, because they don't collect the stats... wonder why.

So the stats have been collected by various research bodies instead.

But i agree with you that there is no one single cause, though i don't know what you mean by MN has outside influence? Russian perhaps?

Hence now calls to introduce a "Aviation Workers Visa" scheme.... talk about a total lack of planning :(

And a pig-headed Government which won't agree to it, because they have to pander to the hard-right Brexiters in their party.

You might be interested to know that staff shortages across many sectors and increase in prices for goods/services is not just a UK thing. My family in usa are complaining bitterly that it is all Biden’s fault. They can’t seem to understand this is not about one country nor about one government.

would be interesting to hear from mumsnetters from other countries too

What pay are you offering? Legal firms are notorious for poorly paying support staff.

Retail worked out in 2020 that they needed to pay more to attract staff. Other employers haven't worked that out yet.

There's a general shortage of qualified professionals, in U.K. but I get the impression that also in the EU. In the last 2 weeks, I've had two large corporations based outside U.K. contact me about a position and they've offered relocation packages. People are retiring and nobody is there to fill the positions.

In U.K. this is aggravated by the fact that many professionals left after Brexit and the pandemic.

Companies can still apply for a sponsor licence and try to find workers abroad for qualified jobs, but this is expensive. Many people who would have come here right after university in their countries don't come any more. They came without jobs, started as waiters and then applied for something in their field. I have plenty of Spanish friends who are engineers, pharmacist etc and started as waiters for a couple of months while finding their feet in London. That's not an option any more so instead they go to Ireland or Germany. Our language skills tend to be ok so when you are young and adventurous, it doesn't make a difference whether you get a job in Germany, Norway or Galway! It's all an adventure. Unfortunately U.K. doesn't appeal as an option any more

@Confusedofbritain

I will confirm 100% what is going on in the construction industry. Myself and hubby own a construction company and it’s becoming a nightmare, workers are expecting £180-£200 per day as a labourer! But they don’t want to work any harder. In fact they want to have constant tea breaks and leave for the day at 3-4pm

my husband is now at a point where he’s sometimes working 3 weeks straight with no day off and 12-14 hours a day just to get the clients work finished. The prices of construction materials have increased by almost 100% in some cases even more

This country is in real trouble…

This is a symptom of lazy parenting, people being entitled and the benefits system.

Whilst there are other reasons, these are the top 3.

This is me, almost word for word but I’m retiring next year.

I’ll be 57, DH 55, so we’ll be using our private pensions.

I’ll receive my NHS pension at 60, and originally I would have retired then, but I can't cope any longer, and that’s working three days a week, due to doing a two person job as they haven’t replaced people who have retired.

My username sums it up perfectly.

This is on Band 2 admin and my wage is very very slightly above £10 an hour.

Its shit.

I agree on general shortage of qualified professionals but why?

Why aren't we able to retain staff, like teachers where do those teachers who leave every year actually go?

We had bright ideas on sending huge numbers of young people to Uni. Many left and then weren't able to get training places.

Many people in professional jobs hitting retirement now only ever had college level qualifications HNC / HND then the big push came for Degrees/ Masters. So more time in education for little gain.

We are both professional public sector workers supposedly fairly well off and yet struggling to make ends meet. Not every wage can be forced up and therefore those on lowest wages who can go elsewhere will do. Many don’t have such choices. This is exactly why we are in this situation. We have stopped people who came here previously wanting to work and made them so unwelcome they probably wouldn’t be wanting to return, and we can’t afford higher wages to attract people to fill the gaps. Brexit and a government who have never experienced or given a thought to how people manage in real life are totally responsible.

Why aren't we able to retain staff, like teachers where do those teachers who leave every year actually go?

Why aren't we able to retain staff? In teaching conditions have plummeted. I genuinely don't know of any other profession where you are expected to take abuse on a near daily basis, and it is your fault if you can't handle it, in fact you are often told you should have de-escalated the situation. I don't blame the pupils, mainstream schools are having to deal with children with complex needs without much support.
Where do they go? Many return to previous careers. We lost a teacher last year who had worked in IT, he didn't even last til the end of his first year. A friends daughter is about to return to a career in accountancy after a few years as a secondary maths teacher. Teachers are graduates, there are lots of retraining opportunities. The government once had a scheme to retrain soldiers as teachers, I think it should be the other way around. If they want army want staff with skills in conflict resolution, managing volatile situations and staying positive in a hostile environment they should look to teachers.

Tell me you're a Tory without telling me you're a Tory

Laughing at the poster who is complaining about immigration being the cause of housebuilding in leafy Surrey. If you are an immigrant who can afford to live there, surely you are the type of skilled immigrant that apparently we will allow entry to our precious country.

I agree on general shortage of qualified professionals but why?

Why aren't we able to retain staff, like teachers where do those teachers who leave every year actually go?

I can answer the teaching question - teachers can't be retained because of working conditions. The biggest issue is the pressure from Ofsted. As a teacher it means senior leadership are constantly scrutinising every little thing you do. Each child is just a statistic.
Ofsted changes its mind every 5 minutes about what its new focus will be so you are constantly being told what new initiative you must bring in and show evidence of. Endless paperwork showing how you are supporting x, y and z groups of pupils. On top of that, decreased funding meaning particularly decreased support for children with SEND. You are told that you must manage children with, in some cases, quite severe SEND with no additional support. And buy books and stationery from your own pocket because your school has run out. Not to mention the slating teachers often get in the media (and on here) by people who have no clue what the job is like.

Teachers that I know who have left have moved on to civil service/local government, admin jobs, become self-employed or retired early. Most have taken a lower-paid job just to get out of education.

Another point about teaching. DH is a secondary teacher. He managed recruitment for Business, Economics and Computing. He can't get any teachers because if you have a degree in these areas you can earn a lot more money elsewhere. The only way to attract candidates would be to offer better working conditions than other jobs in the industry. At the moment you get lower pay and loads of stress, so why would anyone do 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.

But this and the Care Industry require background checks/a thoroughly checkable past.

Are bursaries still available for people who want to retrain as nurses and teachers? My understanding is that they've gone, so retraining is expensive.

A friend of mine has a degree in sociology and speaks fluent French. She's a single parent working as a TA because she can't afford the teacher training course. Has she not looked into this properly, or is this really the crazy reality?

@LaFloristaCalista

its the crazy reality atm

Back in the day we had "sandwich" degree courses. A few family members did them and IMO they were the best of both worlds. OK, it took 6 years, but you came out with a degree and a job and no debt. A younger relative did similar in the 90s, same deal, still working for the same employer now.
I wonder if there is any possibility of increasing the availability of something like that?

Why are non of the solutions making the ceo take a big fat hit in their paycheck?
Why do prices have to rise if the company is already making enough profit to cushion the hike for consumers?

What a waste. I would love to find a French conversation group to improve my French. Could she offer something like that?

There’s a £15,000 tax free bursary to train to teach MFL but being fluent in French with an unrelated degree might not be enough. She might need a second language too.