Has there been a huge NHS recruitment drive?

[Jobseeker19]

The government needs to show what they have been doing this past year to protect the NHS.

When we had the HGV driver crisis wages were improved and visas were given out.

I would like to know what they are doing for the NHS.

Have they encouraged people to join the NHS? What have they done to retain current staff? How many work visas for overseas staff have been accepted?

They can't keep threatening the NHS's decline as a consequence of not following order's whilst doing nothing themselves.

It seems like they are conditioning us to expect the NHS to fail or to put up with shitting or slow appointments because of covid.

There’s TV adverts, not sure how many have actually seen those and decided to retrain.

What staff are they going to recruit? All recruitment is doing at the moment is juggling staff around. The trusts who have never had shortages are recruiting and succeeding but that is creating shortages elsewhere. Less popular trusts are unable to recruit, some of them have got to the stage where they can’t even fill shifts with agency staff at least not without paying very enhanced rates.

There also aren’t the overseas staff wanting to come here. EU staff feel both unwelcome and that their status is insecure since Brexit. Australia and NZ are recruiting from us.

The biggest potential staffing pool are the qualified but not working but they’re not easily tempted back. They’re already broken and for many working in the time of COVID is hardly appealing.

High pay, better conditions maybe you’d tempt some and slow down attrition but that costs. Raising wages with such a large number of staff costs a lot. I would say it’s probably the key though. When I qualified I earned marginally less perhaps £5000 less than my husband who works in another public sector job. His job has inflation linked pay rises and a strong union, 15 years later he’s on £30000 more than me. We haven’t changed jobs.

It also takes months to get through recruitment and skills can't always be transferred. A nurse I know who had 5 years ITU experience, moved to Scotland and it took 4 months to get their contract sorted. Then when they arrived in their new ED post the consultants were thrilled as this person had so much experience as many new staff were newly qualified....but a few weeks into the job they were told they couldn't do half the things they were trained to do as they had not done the courses in Scotland....just in England..crazy. they. Were so demoralised they left to do agency work and study engineering!

Biggest issue is retention.

But no breaks, crappy facilities, pulled out of training for more clinical work, below inflation pay rise, increasing abuse from patients doesn’t really prove much of an inducement.

Govt. need to our money where their mouth is and improve terms & conditions.

I’m a doctor but on all but one of my previous clinical days I only got released from my clinical commitments to have lunch after 3pm. I start at 07:30.

No coffee/loo breaks prior to then either. I can’t just nip to do either of those things as I can’t leave my patient. It’s in humane.

@wtaf37

Look, the NHS was trying to save money 2 years after it was launched, hence prescription and dental charges were bought in.

It is a victim of its own sucess, and sadly, those of us bought up with it (unlike my parents) take it for granted. We want to 'live forever', we take little responsibility for our own health as we assume the NHS will fix all our ills, and we want it NOW!

Funding it is a challenge for any govt; the whole concept was that public health and we as citizens, would improve our health with hospital care being there for illness.

Staffing has always been difficult, and what the public tend to forget is that the NHS isn't just docs and nurses, there's a whole army of staff (managers and others), so it's not just a questipn of recruiting/retaining nurses (and the whole bursary thing is disingenuous), we need untols staff of all levels and all professions.

And the irony is that giving NHS workers a serious pay rise would be far less costly than the financial impact of another lockdown/re-introducing furlough!

They need to start using the recruitment and retention premiums that were built into agenda for change (and never used?). Large across the board pay rises aren’t necessarily the answer, they need to target jobs and job roles that are difficult to recruit to. There are lots of different roles in the nhs and not all are unpopular. Some job roles require much more specific experience and training than others. You really want to keep your staff such as the ITU nurse above, those skills are going to be very difficult to replace.

There was an article on BBC news that said we were flying nursed over from Europe to support this wave. Sounds like we are reacting and solving the here and now and not investing in the longer term. Perhaps there’s no want to commit to the cost long term?

I’ve said from the start of this pandemic that all critical courses (NHS and teaching for example) should have subsidised uni fees to encourage people. But alas, no.

I think the government were so caught up with the vaccines being a 'cure all', they forgot about the NHS and the reason the pandemic has held us in such a tight grip. We have trimmed the NHS to the bone and this is one of the reason we've had to lockdown so hard previously.

First, we need to overhaul the government and how the entire system operates. Too many rich boys with spoons in too many pies and not enough knowledge of the reality of their country.
We then need to overhaul civil service and local councils.

NHS, yes we need people to take more responsibility for their own health. People have forgotten a life before vaccines, antibiotics and readily available healthcare.

We also need to even out the gaps in services. There are massive recruitment problems in some areas and we need to make it more palatable for staff to want to work in these trusts.
We need to recruit more staff within our own country. People complain about our NHS staff going abroad for a better work life balance but the UK also recruit heavily from abroad.

Better incentives for medical training. Cutting the nurses bursary was idiocy at it's finest.
It's obscene that someone kicking a football around,is valued more greatly than a Doctor. Junior Doctor pay is shit when compared to jobs in finance etc.

We need to pay more tax and NI but looking at the Brexit shitshow and rising costs of living it's difficult to lay that on the public now.

I reckon Boris can't wait to go and hand the mess to someone else. Let's face it he'll make a fortune out of giving after dinner speeches to add to his pile. He probably hasn't got a clue what a loaf of bread of litre of petrol costs.

My new junior doctor son got a £3.50 voucher to put towards the canteen Christmas lunch. He is thinking of using it too if he can find 20 minutes to get over to the canteen. What an incentive to stick around for next Christmas!

@ Helpstopthepain I’ve just started doing agency. Let’s just say it’s a myth it is well paid. It’s no better than bank rates in many cases and in some trusts I’ve worked, it’s lower paid than bank and I’m in a specialist role.

The pluses of agency are flexibility and working for a variety of trusts (and every now and then trusts will pay enhanced rates when they’re desperate, which is where the money is) but it’s a pain to be limited in what you can do and to earn the same as I earn in my core job I’d have to work the exact same hours.

If you are hoping to work as a Band 5 nurse, speech and language therapist, occupational therapist, physiotherapist:

• you have to pay for a three year degree and graduate with a £50k loan.

• you start at just over £25k. No pay rise for two years. When you do get a £2k pay rise, this is almost entirely clawed back by an increase in the pension contribution rate (due to your ‘higher salary!)

• your first real pay rise therefore is after four years. It goes up to £31.5k

And then, that’s where you stay! No more pay rises.

A close relative of mine works for the NHS at a local hospital - not medical staff. His department has lost 5 members of staff this year. The Trust is advertising one post (!) but without the recruitment retention bonus, so I don't imagine they will have much success in attracting qualified experienced staff. Needless to say, the remaining staff are exhausted and very very demoralised. More of them are planning to leave next year. We suspect it's only a matter of time before their department is privatised.

You can't recruit what we don't have- ie nurses and doctors. A nurse takes at least 3 years to train, a doctor at least 7 before they can work as a very junior doctor. Radiographer is 3 years. Etc Etc.

they can train HCAs (although not everybody is suited to that job), porters, etc.
But they need to attract more people into nursing. Increasing pay and removing tuition fees would be a great first step.

@Hoowhoowho

@ Helpstopthepain I’ve just started doing agency. Let’s just say it’s a myth it is well paid. It’s no better than bank rates in many cases and in some trusts I’ve worked, it’s lower paid than bank and I’m in a specialist role.

The pluses of agency are flexibility and working for a variety of trusts (and every now and then trusts will pay enhanced rates when they’re desperate, which is where the money is) but it’s a pain to be limited in what you can do and to earn the same as I earn in my core job I’d have to work the exact same hours.

Agree. The higher pay that the hospital pays probably goes to the agency, not the staff.

@APlot

As well, what about the huge fanfare last year from Johnson about tackling obesity? That would arguably reduce pressure on the NHS too, but he's clearly got bored of that campaign as well now. It just seems to have whimpered to a quiet end.

As with everything from Johnson, it was bullshit.

This is a really good thread, and so many posts hit the nail on the head :(

Ultimately, there is very little incentive to join and remain in the NHS.

I retired from nursing about 5 years ago. I would never go back, and my heart goes out to those struggling through the winter working in the NHS.

Get rid of tuition fees. YTF should anyone have to pay to work in such a crucial area? Its disgusting

What a load of rubbish on this thread

There’s a huge recruitment drive for staff across the whole of the NHS. So many adverts and schemes to encourage new staff to join. Lots of great opportunities and the benefits are amazing.

@Bebedoogoogle

What a load of rubbish on this thread

There’s a huge recruitment drive for staff across the whole of the NHS. So many adverts and schemes to encourage new staff to join. Lots of great opportunities and the benefits are amazing.

What ‘benefits’ would that be?

@Bebedoogoogle

What a load of rubbish on this thread

There’s a huge recruitment drive for staff across the whole of the NHS. So many adverts and schemes to encourage new staff to join. Lots of great opportunities and the benefits are amazing.

I see the Department of Health is monitoring this thread!

Pension, sick leave, compassionate leave for a start, training. Far better than many employees get in the private sector.

There are lots of vacancies across the NHS. Look at the health jobs (Trac) if you’re interested.

Oh and I forgot to mention annual leave. Not uncommon to get 20 days in private sector and 35 days in NHS if you’ve been there a while. That’s 3 extra weeks!

@Bebedoogoogle

Pension, sick leave, compassionate leave for a start, training. Far better than many employees get in the private sector.

There are lots of vacancies across the NHS. Look at the health jobs (Trac) if you’re interested.

I worked as a nurse in the NHS for 25 years before being invalided out as it’d broken my health. There might be great benefits for you as a senior manager (I believe that’s what you are?), but it’s grim for those actually doing the work.

@Bebedoogoogle there might be a recruitment drive but what is really needed is a retention drive.

NHS veteran nurse here of 40 years, retired but back working giving vaccines.