Australia recruiting in the UK for nurses, etc

[idonotmind]

Not sure it's been discussed on here yet:

metro.co.uk/2023/02/16/london-australia-to-tempt-nurses-and-teachers-to-move-down-under-18293594/

Anyone tempted? I would be if I was a UK nurse, teacher etc

That's an interesting comparison site.
I compared the town near (uk) where I live to London and apparently, a brand new Volkswagen is £7,500 cheaper here than in London. So if anyone is interested in a new VW, contact me and I'll get you one for, hmm, £3,000 less than you're paying. 😉) And also it says milk is 70p a ltr. Er, I don't think so. It hasn't been 70p for years. Before covid it was £1.09. It's now up to about £1.39.

It seems to rely on people putting prices in. I'm not sure how it works with high inflation, when it would start disregarding older entries.

If you want to look at current Australian food prices then you can access the Woolworths supermarket site from the UK.

I would not be tempted to move to Australia, but I get why someone would consider moving from the UK after the last few years. Especially if family ties and responsibilities are minimal.

Sorry, @Okunevo , I wasn't having a go at you at all. I was thinking the same thing, that it relies on people to update. And that town I live near, I doubt there are many there who update anything!!! Plus, the way prices are shooting up here, it'll be out of date almost immediately after any update. It probably works well and is really useful between large populous cities when the economy is calm and steady.

I agree after looking closer. I looked at my nearest large city and the food prices were lower than current prices but not dramatically so, but no, it will likely not work well for smaller cities.

As far as I know, with family in Sydney, and looking at food prices online, everything is going up over there too.

Many Australian nurses also come for a few years to the uk- it's a reciprocal thing. I'm a UK nurse who moves to Aistralia, a lot of my colleagues have done the uk for a few years. Australia is easier to move to than the UK. And the UK has never had an issue poaching plane loads of phillipino nurses from there.

I think one of the great things about doing medicine is the doors it opens, including travelling. Why not try it? Living abroad isn't for everyone but it's not like there'll be a problem getting a job if they decide to come home.

Not nursing but 2 lads at work went to oz whopping salary compared to what we get

they’ve both come back to uk too expensive to live even with bigger salary
cost of living very high

I'm a recently retired teacher in Melbourne and and I get plaintive emails from the regulating body trying to entice me back into the classroom at 68. BTW I don't consider myself too old to teach effectively, just not interested in a silly workload. Might do some casual work in the winter.

Rents are gong bananas here.

This is nothing new. Australia and NZ have been trying to entice nurses and other HCPs there for years.
I know people who trained as nurses so they could move there.

You can't force anyone to work anywhere. What a ridiculous thing to suggest.

I am still in touch with a lot of people I studied with... Access to Nursing, and then nursing/ODP/MH/paramedic. 10 years on, and less than half are still working in the roles they trained for. A lot of left healthcare altogether.

If you did that, you'd guarantee far fewer students doing health related degrees.. no one wants to be forced to stay in a career for decade against their will, it would also be very tempting to then offer really crappy pay rises because the Govt knows no one can leave.

The Army ties you for ex number of years in any case & they don't train Doctors or Dentists from scratch either.

Private UK agencies go into UK Uni's pre qualification too, not just foreign agencies.

I would argue that medical students already are forced to work in the NHS when they qualify. If you want to train and get to consultant level, there are literally no other options, it’s a monopoly employer. You might be able to go and work in Australia for a couple of years, but it’s really hard for UK graduates to enter specialty training over there, so if you want to train and progress it’s going to be within the NHS, for far less than those skills are worth on an open market, I would add. It’s already pretty much indentured servitude.

Plus, as you point out yourself, medical students pay the same fees as everyone. The difference is the degree is longer, which is exacerbated if you do graduate entry medicine. Then, especially in the clinical years, the placement hours are so
long and the exams so intense, that working a part-time job is almost impossible. This means that, unless you’ve got pretty robust parental financial support behind you, by the time you graduate you are at a financial disadvantage compared to other people who studied other, shorter degrees, who will have less student debt and likely already have a year or two or three of working behind them.

Then you graduate into a system where you apply nationally for a job, and competition is fierce. Already every year there are hundreds of final year students on the waiting list for foundation jobs. You can also be sent anywhere in the country, and if you turn down the job (say, because you don’t want to move away from all your family and friends and support network) then you will just not have a job. Which is an issue because a newly qualified doctor is literally not allowed to work outside the NHS foundation programme, you have to complete the first year to gain your full license to practice, there are no other options.

Medicine is already a career where those from privileged backgrounds are over-represented. Raising the fees medical students pay or forcing doctors to work for a certain amount of time in the NHS with the threat of having to repay their university fees hanging over their head would only make access to medicine harder for those from working class backgrounds.

This was a selling point when I was at school in the late 70s and 80s with America in particular recruiting over here. I certainly remember teachers suggesting nursing as a good career at my girls school as you could work anywhere in the world.

Don't forget, up to 80,000 applicants are denied a place on nursing courses each year so it's not as if people don't want to be nurses!

There aren't even 80k applying in total.

There were 73,085 applicants for nursing courses in 2021 according to UCAS. Of these, only 37,805 were offered places, meaning that over 35,000 potential Student Nurses were rejected (England)

There has to be limits otherwise the NHS cannot provide the correct number of placements, which require skilled nurses to train them up... plus we don't know why they were rejected i.e not enough ucas points etc.

My cousin is a nurse (her ex is a doctor), they moved abroad a few years ago. My cousin receives a far better rate of pay, has better hours (no 13 hour shifts), better staff to patient ratio’s and better facilities (the heating isn’t left
on all summer for everyone to bake!). She returned to the UK, that was also when she decided she would never again work for the NHS. Staffing levels were dangerously low on an almost daily basis on her previous ward, it could take hours for basic stocks to be replenished, patients weren’t fed, washed or physically cared for on a daily basis as there was no one to do it.

She now works in a private hospital, ratios are safe, working conditions are good, patient care is both good and suitable and no 13 hour shifts. Her ex also no longer works for the NHS (or an NHS funded surgery) because ten minutes is not clinically appropriate for the majority of patients.

Forcing people to do x years of service will mean fewer people apply, it will also mean people who are shit at their job will be treating you and your relatives.

I agree not a new thing at all, a relative of mine (nurse) moved to the US, over 40 years ago.

The Aussies and NZ have done this for years. They have just expanded their offer to target teachers, police officers etc as they are suffering from a reduced workforce.

However, the U.K. has also been doing this now for a while, especially since Brexit. We have agencies working overseas in developing countries seeking foreign doctors and nurses and giving them a package to come to the U.K. However, when they arrive, their qualifications and not recognised and frankly often for nurses do not meet our standards and they have to start several months of training and exams to get them to a standard. The NHS trusts have teams of people to meet them at the airport and transport to accommodation near the hospital site. They frequently bring spouse and children which is adding huge pressure on services....ie in my local trust there are circa 100 arriving this year and are sucking up spaces at the local schools meaning others having to travel as they take priority as having moved into the area on relocation. As ever, councils appear oblivious and don't plan ahead with school places as they are not quick enough responding

Frankly it is immoral taking staff from these countries that desperately need them after training them. Perhaps offering student nurse training places without loans would increase recruitment and for doctors expand the training places as currently this last year, only 15% of applicants were offered a place at medical school due to govt restrictions. The whole thing is a scandal when the NHS is collapsing

Because it's beyond ridiculous that after finishing uni, anyone should be forced to work in a company they don't want to or being stopped to move to another country because they want to. There is such thing as freedom in the UK, unless we are mistaken.

I have two doctors from Sri Lanka working for me - they both have to return this year to “pay back” the government for their training and work in their hospitals. They can pay a huge fine if they want to get out of it. It’s not that unusual

Re doctors “paying their pound of flesh” the absolute motto we live and die by is that deanery doctors are not there for service they are there for training. Their training comes before any service provision - it’s the doctors outside the training programmes ie trust doctors (usually who we’ve poached from abroad) absolutely killing themselves providing patient care on the wards.

If I had a tenner for every FY2 who has told me they are “going to Oz” id be a rich lady. It isn’t 10 years ago, there is fierce competition for places, if you do go you end up in some backwater miles from anywhere and inevitably return home within 18 months due to the cost of living, working hours and the fact you’re now a “service” doctor not a protected “training” doctor. Land of milk and honey it ain’t

Agree it's a scandal, but regarding school places, councils are indeed oblivious because they are simply not informed. I work in a large secondary school and am already seeing this - but these children don't get priority 'as having moved into the area on relocation' - that's not a thing. However, they often do move into built up areas near schools (where hospitals are) and therefore come high up on waiting lists due to where they live.

What can councils do? they never invited in the families of nurses or of any other immigrant.
They don't have the money to build more schools and hire more teachers.

Anyway, i didn't think essential worker visa scheme migrants where allowed to bring in family?

They've always done this. Nothing new. We do the same in other countries.

In Wales you're expected to work for 2 years post qualification to repay your training if you've taken any bursaries etc. Maybe England should consider the same.

In Wales your fees are paid so it's fair enough really, in England where you have to pay/take a loan for your fees how would that be fair?