Why are nursing jobs hard to fill?

[SquishyBones]

Was watching the news earlier and they were saying that they predict a lot of nurses will quit the profession once the covid lark is over. Considering we already had a nurse shortage before covid ... this could be disastrous.

I mean, nursing is one of the only professions where you’re practically guaranteed a job for life. I could quit my job tomorrow and find another within weeks. At one time, I had 3 successful job interviews and could choose which one to go for. In the community, our place is constantly advertising for band 5s but half the applicants don’t even turn up for the interview and those that do get the job and quit within months.

I remember once I landed what I considered to be an amazing, perfect job. I felt very special ... until I was told that I was the only one who applied for it 😂 I totally cocked up the interview too, I even got the name of the company wrong (called it NHS but it was actually a different company) and I hadn’t even researched what services they offer! So when they asked me I outright said “I don’t know”. Yet I got the job as they were desperate. But why is this the case?

5 years post qualifying I don’t like nursing and I don’t intend to keep doing it. The pay is shit, you are treated like shit, pay to park at work, pay for your registration every year, Constant training, constant pressure, expected to be a robot with no personal life ....

The final straw came for me when a patient ranted at me that I was selfish working part time when the NHS is in such dire need of nurses. He said I was putting myself before my patients. I corrected him and said it wasn’t for my benefit as such ... more for my dog that I don’t want to leave alone for long periods. He was fuming.

AIBU to thinking nursing and healthcare in general need to do something drastic now to shake up the system to make people actually WANT to “nurse”?

@VirtueClapper83 how much do you earn then? I get confused about the salaries as some say it's good others say it's dire. Similarly with teachers my friend is on 50k (London secondary school with TLR responsibility) but posters always accuse me of lying. 🤷‍♀️

I have such huge respect for nurses. 10 years of austerity and public sector pay restraint has not been kind to their pay and conditions, and I also can't really see why anyone would want to join the profession at the moment.

Not a nurse but I retrained as an AHP a decade ago after a very demanding professional career elsewhere. I have never worked so hard in my life as I did for the NHS. The pay and working conditions were poor, resources and equipment underfunded and the patient expectations, workload and management demands were relentless. We also had to do hundreds of hours of unpaid work on placement, and once qualified NQPs frequently left with stress/mental health issues due to the workload and patient demands. And I was community, no shift work, Band 7, so definitely at the 'easier' end of the spectrum imo. Like nurses we had to pay to work - HCPC registration, (toothless) national body fees, DBS registration, parking permits etc. Any CPD came out of our annual leave and we generally paid for it ourselves. The profession is also struggling to recruit to Band 5 posts (bursaries went for us too) and many who have a choice are leaving the profession.

I'm sad to say that at the moment I would probably discourage my dc from working for the NHS, let alone taking on hefty student loans to train.

And yet - I had a secure job and a pension, which is becoming rarer and rarer. I'm a strong believer in the NHS and in free at point of use healthcare for all, and I would hate us to end up with (as the Tories clearly want and have already started to make happen) services hived off to the private sector. I don't agree with Lineman's view that the NHS can't work. I hate it when people say that the answer is to cut it all up and give it out in private contracts to mates of Dominic Cummings. The NHS doesn't charge hospital nurses for parking - the private companies the hospitals were compelled to sell parking contracts to do that.

The NHS has always been a political football. Each successive government decides that's what's needed is more reorganisation and chopping up, more 'being like the private sector' rather than looking at it as a public good and sorting out the root causes of the various staffing and retention problems. There's always plenty of money for management consultants to tell us how inefficient we are compared to the wonderful care they saw for ten minutes on an expenses-paid jolly to some private hospital in the US, and to implement the latest half-baked whizzo reorganisation scheme, but somehow never enough for pay, parking permits, aircon (or even openable windows) in the workplace.

@poppydull around £1850p/m NHS 32hrs/week band 5. When it’s available on agency, anywhere from £400-1600p/m. Partner is on £2300 as a class room teacher

There are going to be a great number of people unemployed soon due to the virus, sadly. People should be given help to retrain to become nurses.

Horrifically low salaries. Nurses here in the US earn three times as much.

@poppydull sorry, meant to add after income tax/N.I deducted that is

Our staff carpark is free for night staff. If daystaff got free parking then surely staff should also get free or at least subsidised bus and train travel. Nursing is not a shit job, its a worthwhile job if you have support and enough staff and equipment to do it safely and to a good standard. Too many managers, audits and meetings make it a frustrating job as you can never get anything simple done.

To be fair, tuition fees are a bit of a red herring to nurses, as most won't earn enough to may more than a tiny amount back.

For example, a nurse on £30k will pay back about £30 pm and as most stay in band 5/6 it won't go up much above that.

Nurses being able to save £2/3k pm and buy sports cars will not be the norm either. Most won't even earn that.

As far as salaries being 'good'/poor, it's not great for a graduate job and too low for high cost areas even with allowances, but in cheaper areas, nurses on around £30k, which most of those who work full time, have been in the profession a few years and receive shift allowances will earn, maybe even up to around £40k, will be amongst the best paid people locally.

With nursing there seems to be many disadvantages. Any job sector or role with a HIGH turn over (usually) is a bad sign it means they can’t retain their staff (run). It’s not overly child friendly once you have kids very early starts and late finishes and hardly any flexibility!. The nursing industry is mainly women and can be very very bitchy and a place for gossip galore..... ohhhh the joys!

@BarbaraofSeville

To be fair, tuition fees are a bit of a red herring to nurses, as most won't earn enough to may more than a tiny amount back.

For example, a nurse on £30k will pay back about £30 pm and as most stay in band 5/6 it won't go up much above that.

Nurses being able to save £2/3k pm and buy sports cars will not be the norm either. Most won't even earn that.

As far as salaries being 'good'/poor, it's not great for a graduate job and too low for high cost areas even with allowances, but in cheaper areas, nurses on around £30k, which most of those who work full time, have been in the profession a few years and receive shift allowances will earn, maybe even up to around £40k, will be amongst the best paid people locally.

I don't disagree, partic on student loans, which most will never have to pay off.

But in high cost areas it's complicated by childcare and housing costs. Our Band 6s used to go off on mat leave one after the other and then realise they couldn't afford to work unless they either went very part-time or moved closer to grandparents for childcare. Plus a constant drain of more experienced staff moving out of London when they realised they could buy a house on the salary elsewhere. I think this probably applies to teaching too.

I'm unemployed and live in an area screaming out for nurses in Aus. It's literally the only job ads most weeks locally.
My employment agency has offered the entry courses in and they government funded.
I would NEVER become a nurse.
I'm not overly caring for strangers, crap hours, I'm too squeamish and a needle phobia, too high risk of assault.
It's simply not a job I'd be suited too at all. It's something you gotta really love I feel, not just get into cos you get the right scores in education type thing

Trainee nursing associate. See if your trust offers this :)

@Brieminewine they have brought In Nurse Associates, which is similar. But no trained nurse I know is actually in favour of it.

@VirtueClapper83 Congratulations! You have won the (not so) stealth boast post the day award!

Apparently there's been a significant increase in applications to nursing degrees this year. What remains to be seen, however, is whether that actually results in more nurses or just a lot of very disappointed and disillusioned people who thought they'd be heroes who got to skip the Tesco queue and have no idea about the reality of what their working lives will be like (and so find out on their first placement and quit)

@Mirrorxx

I don’t really get the outrage about parking. Surely everyone who drives to work pays for parking?

As people have said, no they don't. I do in my current job but never have before. But also, it's not just that you have to pay, it's how expensive hospital car parking usually is. I pay to park at my workplace (a university) but it's £15 a month (and it's a percentage of salary, so some people pay less), which is less than it would cost you to park for two days at my local hospital.

@Mirrorxx - just to echo what others have said - you have a very narrow world view based on your own experience. I've worked in lots of jobs with free parking. And as a pp posted, nurses on awkward shifts have to drive.
BTW - all parking in hospitals in Wales is free, so perfectly do-able in England too.

I agree with all the points raised, but it's similar for lots of other jobs too, particularly in the public sector. Why would anyone want to be a police officer, for example? Yet other jobs get paid £££ for very little. Unless we have a refocus about what we value and need in this country I think we are going to be struggling hugely in a few years. It's a pity we don't seem to have learnt anything from COVID - i.e. what we really need as a society at the most basic level are good cleaners, shop workers, teachers, nurses and doctors, not HR executives, police developement officers and footballers paid ££££

Not a nurse, but a midwife.

I think the main thing causing people to leave is the lack of job satisfaction. Because we’re always short staffed, I don’t have the time to give women the quality of care that I want to. I have enough time to provide a safe service (which is what keeps managers happy, and audits passed...) but I can’t do the niceties that make the care worth giving and give you overall job satisfaction. So for example, I can get your antibiotics up, I can do the obs, all the time critical stuff is done on time, everyone is safe. However, your discharge home might take several hours because I’ve also got half a ward to look after as we’re running on 60% staffing or whatever, or your pain relief might be twenty minutes after you’ve asked for it (and when you’re in pain twenty minutes is a really long time) or perhaps I don’t have an hour to sit and help you breastfeed. I’d really like to do all those things; discharge you home in a time efficient manner, give you what you ask for immediately, help you feed for as long as you need it... but the reality is I’m probably looking after another 12 women and their babies on my own and in order to juggle all the things to ensure you’re all safe, the nice things have to wait. When staffing is great (and I mean not just at the bare minimum that the government deem sufficient) then I can really go that extra mile and feel like I’m doing a good job and it really reminds me why I’m in this profession. When I can’t, I often leave in tears as I’m stressed and just feel like I’ve let women down as I’ve not been able to deliver the care they deserve. So I can see why people leave.

Shift work is a real biggie. I've watched my NHS working friends get ground into the ground while raising children because of changing shifts. Earlies/days/nights.

And the thing about nurses having to have a degree now is ridiculous.

I'm a nurse and I have no intention of leaving the profession but I haven't worked in the NHS for eight years and I qualified with a first class degree nine years ago.
I have worked in nursing homes and for pharmaceutical companies.
I have never earned less than 32K and that package included private healthcare and company car.
Currently earn £44K as clinical lead at a private nursing home. I work three and a half shifts per week, no nights, no on call etc.
Yes I dont get sick pay or mat any more than stat allowances so I had short mat leaves and I pay £25 per month for private illness cover.
I love my job and find it personally and financially very rewarding.

I would unhesitatingly recommend my career path, irrespective of the student loan I incurred and the twelve hour days. Not to mention the poor public perception of nursimg homes.

a society at the most basic level are good cleaners, shop workers, teachers, nurses and doctors, not HR executives, police developement officers and footballers paid ££££

There is no denying footballers get paid obscene amounts but it's the market. They won't be getting 200k a week if no one buys a ticket or watch's a match on TV or buys merchandise. It's no different to singers etc no fans no money.

I also don't think you can compare shop workers & cleaners to public sector staff. There is discrepancies between job security, retirement age & pensions for one.

With all due respect, I don't agree that nurses needing degrees is unnecessary, when you consider we are as accountable for administering a medication that was wrongly prescribed, as is the doctor who wrote it... Also we have a right to progress within nursing and having the degree level training deepens your ability to account for the care you give.. and opens opportunities to teach etc

It's a crap job, especially on the wards. Today's youth won't want to know, their view of the workplace is fundamentally different and the job has changed over the years I have been a Nurse. We are basically fucked

I left after 26 years. It had stopped being about caring for patients and instead the job had become some kind of endless tick box exercise. Jumping through hoops for the sake of it, petty rules designed to upset and demoralise staff. There was no time for the patients anymore - indeed very little seemed to be actually about the patients.

I’m paid a lot less now as a TA in a private school but I survive and I’m nowhere near as stressed as I used to be.

" I get confused about the salaries as some say it's good others say it's dire."

Surely, salaries for nurses and teachers are public knowledge, just like for other public servants.