AIBU- free childcare NHS

[Newintown123]

I am a professional career nanny and have recently signed up to use bubble babysitting. I have received a barrage of job requests from NHS staff asking for free sits- some as long as 10 hours a day. A recent request required 10 hrs per day for 10 weeks- for FREE

AIBU- considering many nannies have had their hours reduced/ made redundant since an increasing number of parents are WFH

Piss takers out of my friends who work for NHS all but 1 earn over 35k

Please don't assume all NHS staff think this is appropriate, thats a shocking level of entitlement. I have never used my NHS status to ask for anything pre or post Pandemic and never will in the future.

NHS stafare not the only people suffering due to the Pandemic and hard as it is at least we still have jobs to go to. I really sympathise with those who are worrying about their jobs even being around in the future.

[quote speckledcat]@TractorAndHeadphones

Interesting POV. I work in diagnostics and apart from a couple of weeks we were very much working right through the pandemic. Reduced numbers of scans yes to allow for cleaning and social distancing but all face to face. We were classed as at high risk of covid and sent messages from Public Health England to that effect. Who do you think took all the chest x rays looking for covid when GPs weren't seeing patients? Radiographers did. All that happened is we did not have the usual 250 plus scans per modality waiting to be reported due to a mismatch between scanning and reporting capcity as they were more balanced.[/quote]
Very well said diagnostic services were very much at the forefront of the Pandemic. Many people (even my own family members) had no idea we could spend an entire shift on the covid ward x-raying patient after patient in the full ppe plus a lead coat. In the early days of the Pandemic when there wasn't enough ppe to go round had to argue our case with an out of date chief nurse saying we were peripatetic workers who didn't need the protection. Never mind the fact that we gave our patients the equivalent of a cuddle when positioning them and they were too unwell to move themselves and that we then became possible vectors of infection as we moved between patients and back to the main departments to deal with non covid patients.

Unfortunately lots of people don't have a clue about what any of the NHS depts do/did (even when working for the NHS) but likewise it seems a large number of NHS staff have little comprehension of how other industries and individuals have suffered and will continue to suffer for some time yet.

climbing off the soapbox now, but some comments annoy me

Sorry op. You should definitely be paid for your valuable time and work.

Most NHS staff looking for free/discounted stuff are often on the fringes. I remember watching one of the hospital back room secretaries who works in the local NHS trust offices ( half a mile from the hospital) stroll into Tescos without queuing during the first lockdown. They were all working from home and the nearest they get to patients is if they are having treatment for something themselves. They also work normal hours. She had dressed up and sling on her NHS pass.
Anyone who works under the NHS banner can get a blue light card (discounts and freebies), all our dental nurses have them, I’m a dentist with an NHS contract but have given up trying to get one because they won’t accept my ID🙄.
I find it embarrassing claiming concessions. Like most of the NHS, apart from those who work in the Covid wards and those deployed to work in these areas had a pretty easy ride through the pandemic. All the tictoc videos are testament to that.
Expecting freebies now is really CF

PS we all got paid during lockdown

@rwalker

Piss takers out of my friends who work for NHS all but 1 earn over 35k

Lucky them. Shame most of us don't earn anywhere near that.

Do the sitters not have to be Ofsted registered if they are providing over 3 hrs care in the daytime or something? This seems well dodge from a regulation PoV? Genuine babysitting used to be between the hrs of 6pm and midnight, or something like that, and fell outwith Ofsted remit.
Long time since I needed to know this stuff (PTA at local preschool 15 or so yrs ago!!!)

I am a healthcare assistant - I usually work in paeds but was redeployed to adult wards during the height of the pandemic & this included covid wards. Which is absolutely fine, that's my job that I'm paid to do and I do it well. I have never, not once, used my job to get anything for free & neither have my colleagues, to my knowledge. I have used my blue badge discount to buy some things online - as have many others I'm sure. I am not debating care staff had it hard, I know they did, they were facing the same unknowns, and I actually did mention that in my first post. I know I am lucky to be in a secure job, but I do not understand the 360 attitude towards NHS staff that we are all lazy, entitled and wealthy people who are money grabbing our job is literally to save your life and help look after you when you are ill or even dying. And although as a patient with a long wait time or cancelled surgery it doesn't always feel that way, the staff on the frontline (ie seeing you) are trying bloody hard to deliver the best care they can!

I work for the nhs I wouldn't dream of asking for free childcare, where has this come from?? Is it advertised somewhere it sounds bizarre
The website maybe needs a notification on the home page

I wonder if this is some sort of initiative that was set up in lockdown to support staff whose childcare closed?
It does sound like an almighty pisstake for people to be using/trying to use it now.
I use my blue light card though. I'm a band 5 single parent working 4 hours a week. My income is not high and it does help. Blue light was around long before covid though.