Page 2 | Treatment of nurses in the NHS is mad

unfortunateevents · 12/08/2021 21:52

Hobnobsandbroomstick, he does indeed have to pay fees, the bursary is a £5k pa non-repayable amount so it's a big help but he will still leave with the same amount of student debt as his brother who did a non-vocational degree.

Fullofglee · 12/08/2021 21:57

I studied nursing in 2005-2008 it was hardwork then with the bursary and fees paid, I tried working extra but it was feasible, they also place you in placements out of the area where you have to pay your transport you claim it back but at the end of your placement. I went to York University and had to go to Selby Hospital. I'm not in the profession now, I'm a swimming teacher and so much more happier.

Ilovemycat13 · 12/08/2021 22:04

[quote FlorenceNightshade]@Ilovemycat13 I only mentioned Scotland because that’s where I’m based and I know that funding and courses vary across the uk.[/quote]
Yes sorry Florence, I did recall my first post as I read it incorrectly

ParistoLondon · 12/08/2021 22:10

Main reason why I left. I just couldn't do it anymore. And the endless verbal abuse. Absolutely horrendous. I left right before covid, I do not regret my decision, not for a moment.

TooStressyTooMessy · 12/08/2021 22:13

If it’s so bad why haven’t you left?. I did. Moved sideways anyway. Along with lots of other nurses who leave frontline work or leave altogether. I miss it but I don’t miss the intolerable stress or abuse.

Dontwatchfootball · 12/08/2021 22:30

It is not Covid - it is years of governments who want to privatize everything and have systematically starved it of funds while pretending they are not. For the last decade or so I have worked in it, there has been in real terms less and less money each year and increasing demands. It is terrifying that this is not wider publicized.

Hipt · 12/08/2021 22:55

I'm a mental health nurse and agree with earlier comments about the endless cycle of losing staff.

Those coming in dont replace in numbers those who are leaving. The main issue in my team is that more nurses are retiring then qualifying.

At 35 I'm by far the youngest qualified member of my team and in the next 5 years we anticipate that 50% of our nurses will be past retirement age.

We are in a horrible cycle where either nurses are waiting out for their retirement and cope that way, or the younger ones come in get burnt out by the workload, and staff vacancies and then leave (creating more of a burn out risk for the practitioner after them)

The level of staffing in my county is officially classed as high risk. There is no short term solution, any recruiting we do manage is very rarely someone who is new to the nhs or even the trust, and just leaves a higher level of vacancy in their old team. Its very much shuffling the same members of staff. We need somehow to be getting more people qualified

FightingtheFoo · 12/08/2021 22:55

@OverseasNurse

I'm an overseas nurse and been in the UK for a year and a half now (came just before covid so seen the worst of it) I first want to say that I have respect for what the NHS does and that everyone can access care here. I have the highest respect for my fellow nurses who work tirelessly.

BUT I am shocked by how nurses are treated here! The expectations that we work unpaid overtime regularly (nearly every shift each week), absolute crap staffing ratios, understaffing and shit pay with no advancement for further training or development or skills, plus regular abuse from patients who are angry about service delays that are completely out of our control. I don't know a single nurse on my unit who isn't actively considering leaving the profession. (Compared to my home country where people are stressed by Covid but not considering leaving the work.)

I don't understand how the system can or will continue. We have been at approximately 40% staff level in the last month or so due to pingdemic, covid infections, isolation, etc and our patients have only increased but we literally can't run our service. AIBU to think it will fall apart any day now? Is this part of Tory privatisation plans to just run the NHS into the ground? Has it always been this bad for nurses in the NHS or is this all due to covid?

Out of curiosity how come you moved to the UK?

TheRabbitStoleMyHat · 13/08/2021 07:44

@essentialhealing

If it's so bad why haven't you left?

And do what? I’m 42. I’m only trained to be a nurse, I can’t afford to go to university. What options are there.

Namenic · 13/08/2021 07:53

Occupational health? Research nursing? Education - teaching nursing skills?

TheRabbitStoleMyHat · 13/08/2021 08:40

Still nursing though isn’t it.

And I’ve already moved away from the wards. But I’m continually pulled back to work on them as they’re so short staffed which means I can’t do my actual job.

Stompythedinosaur · 13/08/2021 09:04

If it's so bad why haven't you left?

You know that huge numbers of nurses are leaving the profession?

SafeMove · 13/08/2021 09:50

I work in research and part of my role is to work alongside nursing staff and midwives. The thing is, the country should be up in arms about the state of nursing on wards. Because the majority of the time staffing levels directly impact on patient safety. I would be very worried about my family member with cancer going into hospital at the moment. The near misses and actual harm are eye watering tbh. Including adult RGN's who are pulled into paediatric nursing because they have to make up the ratios and don't know what they are doing. Theatre staff being shuffled into ICU's and not being familiar with equipment, midwives caring for labouring women above the safe ratio. I can go on and on. It isn't safe.

The nursing staff know this, management know this but what can they do? They work with the resources available. The government knows the NHS is run on good will, people will work unpaid overtime. It is only when individuals experience the sharp end of a failure in safety that they complain. There is no outcry until it impacts them directly. This is where the system fails. If we didn't turn away collectively until it impacts us, we would all be safer.

EL8888 · 13/08/2021 15:28

@Hipt the cycle you mention is very much a thing

This is why l don’t work for the NHS anymore. It’s too much pressure and not enough pay, thanks or recognition. Life is too short

imaginethemdragons · 13/08/2021 15:45

Agreed.

I left the clinical shop floor to go down another avenue of nursing but do a clinical shift per week volunteering on top of my full time hours as I can’t sit on my hands and watch my ex colleagues be driven into the ground.

I am constantly under the threat of being redeployed back to the shop floor especially as COVID hospital numbers have risen hugely again taking up general beds.

I’m counting down to retirement….

DPotter · 13/08/2021 15:45

If it’s so bad why haven’t you left?

I trained back in the 80s, as a student nurse - there were 50 in my set. It wasn't uncommon for us to be asked this by senior nursing tutors and other nurses as a counter to comments and complaints about the quality of training/ service concerns . And do you know what happened ? Within less than a year only 10 of my set were still in nursing. That's what happens when you treat staff badly AND it has to be said the staff don't have good trade union / professional body support.

To the poster who said she couldn't leave because it was all she was trained for - don't ever underestimate the incredible level of transferrable skills nurses have. If your interested book an appointment with the National Careers service to talk through options.

kvarstar · 13/08/2021 15:48

Yes, it is particularly crap now. Most nurses have degrees, most senior nurses have postgraduate qualifications.
Senior nurses with postgraduate qualifications/masters degrees earn about half what teachers with the same level of qualifications earn.
And they have to treat Covid patients with a paper mask not even the FFP3 masks that other countries mandate.
15000 health and social staff died of Covid, but apparently health and safety at work does not apply to nurses (or other hospital staff).

kvarstar · 13/08/2021 15:50

*1500
Sorry too many zeros.

Toddlerteaplease · 13/08/2021 16:12

I love my job. We are usually well staffed. However our unit currently has 104 staff off for various reasons. I spent most of yesterday trying to magic up staff out of thin air. Only when I threatened to mark the ward as unsafe did management help. I've never known morale be so low.

Toddlerteaplease · 13/08/2021 16:13

The quality of students at the minute is absolutely appalling. I don't know how some of them
Even managed to get through the university interview. It feels like we are babysitting them At times.

unfortunateevents · 13/08/2021 16:30

'toddlertea I would agree with that and my son IS a nursing student! Luckily I honestly think he is one of the better ones (well I would say that wouldn't I!)? He often tells me that he wonders how some people made it onto the course as they seem to be barely able to look after themselves, never mind care for others. However, I also worry about how they are going to improve, given the year they have had. DS has been in uni for ONE day for the entire year, I honestly wonder about how much use they can have been on their placements? He worked as a care assistant for a year before uni and credits that with most of the knowledge and skills he has picked up so far!

Thriwit · 13/08/2021 16:50

It’s not just nurses, it’s pretty much all staff, and has been the situation long before Covid. I worked in NHS labs for years before finally leaving. I was constantly finishing late, constantly rearranging holiday, because the wards weren’t in sync with the labs, and we didn’t have enough staff anyway. Far too often ended up doing things way above my pay grade. And the “no blame culture” was anything but.
I don’t have a degree, so there was no way for me to ever be above a Band 3. That in itself is very demoralising. Especially when you’re training the new Band 5s and even the junior doctors. I moved to the private sector and actually have a career now, they don’t seem to care that I never graduated.

Caritas · 13/08/2021 17:10

I was a second year student nurse in London when I decided to drop out of the course in the Autumn of 2019. I commenced my degree before the bursary was reintroduced, and being my second degree therefore meant I was essentially doubling my student loan debt. During my two years of a student nurse in London, I experienced:
-Chronic understaffing in all of my placements (hospital, community, private/NHS based), meaning various tasks I needed signing off in order to continue my course were ignored.
-Constant bullying and harassment between colleagues and staff (one of my mentors held an ongoing grudge against her colleague during my placement on their ward, culminating in that colleague leaving and nothing being done despite my reporting it to management).
-Abuse towards students by both staff and patience, with students being drafted in as HCA’s due to the staff shortage, thus missing out on vital learning, and more easily taken advantage of.
I and my student colleagues were essentially paying to work, often 13-14 hour shifts in which you were devalued and undermined. I couldn’t take any more of it, and for the sake of my mental health had to regretfully leave. I’m now a SAHM to my DC, and couldn’t be happier, though I still feel occasional sadness that I didn’t/couldn’t continue. Out of the 10 friends I made in my first week, only 2 eventually graduated, and of whom only 1 is still a practising nurse. These are matters which need to be urgently addressed, to prevent ongoing retention.

StrictlyAFemaleFemale · 13/08/2021 18:08

Where are you from? Am curious - not wishing to start a bun fight.

Spondooliesforholibobs · 13/08/2021 18:12

@essentialhealing

If it's so bad why haven't you left?

I hate this reply, all nurses cannot just leave, they are compassionate people, doing a vocation, colleagues and patients depending on them, never mind their bills and mortgages.