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.

@4pmwinetimebebeh

No. They desperately need to remove tuition fees for nursing and reinstate the bursery. It’s put off thousands of potentially brilliant nurses. The course includes hours of placement including shifts etc and with the fees and no support it’s impossible for most mature students/parents. That would make a huge difference.

Medical school places are fully taken around here, so there seems to be no need to encourage more students to train. What IS needed is more medical schools and more medical school places.

I'm in the middle of a nursing degree dual qualified LD nursing and Adult nursing. It's hard work and I'm going to owe so much money I went into it because I love nursing but I will most probably be going private or bank/agency nursing . The staffing is shocking, I would say they need to cut down on practice time in placements, Australia do half the time we do to train most of it is literally acting as a unpaid HCA , nurses are too busy to teach you, so I've been used as a unpaid HCA for 16 weeks of the year. I was a full time HCA for 4 years prior to nurse training so I know how to be one.

@XmasSadface

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

The problem with removing tuition fees is that:

The 2017-2020 cohorts graduated with £50k debt, no bursary at all.

The 2018-2021 (and beyond) cohorts graduated with £50k debt and a bursary:

• The 2018-2021 cohort got £5k in their final year

• The 2019-2022 cohort got £5k in their second and final years.

• The 2020-2023 cohort will get £5k in all three years.

So if they reversed the tuition fees now, it leads to a really tricky situation for the above cohorts. How is it fair that they got caught up in a five year experiment with tuition fees?

It’s worse for the 2017-2020 cohort as they completely missed out on the reintroduction of a small bursary.

Government gave billions extra and what did they do? Immediately advertised for a bunch of chief execs on 6 figure sums. What will they actually do to manage the trusts properly? Look at the waste and mismanagement?
Walk into the orthopaedic department of a large hospital in NW England and find 5 receptionists all sat behind the desk gossiping. Same in xray/scan dept. One woman sat at a desk. Sent me to a desk further on the corridor. Looked up, grunted, took my name then sent me back to sit near the first desk.
Waited 20 minutes then the nurse came out shouting my name, they wondered where I was as they couldn't find me!!

I did a winter pressures shift yesterday on a busy medical ward. I'm not usually ward based. It was the most utterly depressing experience. No permanent members of staff, the ward is staffed entirely by bank and agency staff and people like me who are expected to pitch up and suddenly be competent in all the skills a ward nurse has that I haven't done for ages (administration of IV medication, wound dressings, complex discharge planning, the list is endless). Absolutely no continuity of care at all.

I worked non stop without food or drink and didn't even have time to nip to the toilet (good job I didn't get a chance to drink anything!)
I just feel so incredibly sorry for the patients and their relatives who are all caught up in this shit show, I can't truly believed that hospital is a safe place to be at the moment. There just aren't enough staff to make it so.

YANBU, why didn't the govt make training for nursing way more attractive? And why is it ok to spend billions on track and trace but not improve nurses' pay? Crazy. The same goes for GPs.

@4pmwinetimebebeh

No. They desperately need to remove tuition fees for nursing and reinstate the bursery. It’s put off thousands of potentially brilliant nurses. The course includes hours of placement including shifts etc and with the fees and no support it’s impossible for most mature students/parents. That would make a huge difference.

This. I'd love to be a nurse but simply can't afford to train

Retention in the NHS and social care is currently shit. I work in social care, and some of our teams have lost 25-30% of their social workers, and one team had lost 4 out of 5 occupational therapists. My local authority and NHS trust both pay less than the surrounding LAs/trusts, so we are haemorrhaging staff to our neighbours. The remaining teams are struggling to take on newly qualified staff, even, because there aren't enough experienced staff left to mentor them.

There needs to be a comprehensive look at workforce management across both sectors. Grants for students going into a health or social care degree. Yes it takes years to train new staff, but the need will still be there in 3/4/7 years time. Support for placements as students train. Mentoring schemes for newly qualified staff. Pay increases for existing staff. Inflation linked cost of living increases - this year I got 1%, which was announced two days before a splash in the papers saying that inflation is now running at 5%. Proper training and development schemes to support staff. More permanent contracts and fewer agency/bank workers so that strong teams can form. A proper overhaul of the number of hours people are expected to work, with measures built in to support part-time/flexible work.

@EllaPaella

I did a winter pressures shift yesterday on a busy medical ward. I'm not usually ward based. It was the most utterly depressing experience. No permanent members of staff, the ward is staffed entirely by bank and agency staff and people like me who are expected to pitch up and suddenly be competent in all the skills a ward nurse has that I haven't done for ages (administration of IV medication, wound dressings, complex discharge planning, the list is endless). Absolutely no continuity of care at all. I worked non stop without food or drink and didn't even have time to nip to the toilet (good job I didn't get a chance to drink anything!) I just feel so incredibly sorry for the patients and their relatives who are all caught up in this shit show, I can't truly believed that hospital is a safe place to be at the moment. There just aren't enough staff to make it so.

You see, you’ve had actual experience of the reality while Georgeskitchen just relies on hoary anecdote.

Medical school places are fully taken around here, so there seems to be no need to encourage more students to train. What IS needed is more medical schools and more medical school places.

I don't doubt the places are full, but what percentage are UK students?

My friend in a medical field commented that there had been an increase in the number of places, but they'd gone to student from the far East as the Uni gets more money for them than uk students

Why should people get into debt to do relatively low paid stressful work when they could get a job in HR or something that involves more pay and no standing up

NHS Trusts have had near constant employment drives for years.

While the year on year pay cits and diabolical conditions continue there is not much chance of the employment situation continuing.

Boris' letter to NHS staff about the booster programme push had me spitting nails - he said the government would do "everything in their power to support staff", which is such rubbish as the only think staff want to to be paid fairly so we have a shot at not being so understaffed all the time.

*employment situation improving

There are plenty of NHS jobs here but....

All the admin jobs are very low paid (Band 2 or 3) with little chance of training or progression.

Lots of clinical Band 3 jobs too but it's almost impossible to get beyond Band 4 without a relevant three year degree. I have several friends who are brilliant and should progress but are stuck because they don't want full time education for three years and all the associated costs.

The government is missing a trick.

@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.

No there isn't, good friend is in NHS HR and my DD is still waiting for budget to be approved for her salary, despite actually getting the post 4 months ago.

Band 5, hi pensions contributions, average industry hols, shifts, 7 day working... yeah fucking great.

We recently stayed in a ABnB in London, the owner was a senior manager in the NHS, he said in our rural area (S.W) recruitment wasn't so bad but in London, they have huge shortages, made worse by Brexit, he said it was a scandal the numbers of EU staff who have left the NHS/not coming here.

There is no recruitment drive in the EU as we charge 1000s in health insurance for foreign workers and their families.

We shouldn't be relying on EU workers for any sector we should be training AND Retaining enough UK people.

It can't just be the money that puts people off staying in the NHS, what else is going on that needs to change to encourage more people to return to NHS.

@Seymour5

Starting as a Trainee Nursing Associate could be a way in. A bit like the old SEN, a step up from a HCA, and a way to find out about the job before committing to a degree. Pays around £20k.

My son has just started on this and my daughter in law will be in the next cohort. They've both had experience in hca roles, so hopefully understand what they're getting into! With both of them doing it, plus having a lodger, they should manage financially.

The problem with expanding medical school places is finding enough clinical placements for the students. I’m a GP and also a senior medical teacher, responsible for organising some of the 33 weeks of NHS placements required every year for students in years 3-5 of our standard 5 year medical degree course.
The people who do ward/practice based supervision and teaching of students are the same clinicians who do the clinical care of patients. The busier the clinical work (which obviously has to take priority), and the more people who burn out and leave, the fewer placements we have for students.
I’ve had three practices drop out in the last week due to staff shortages and clinical workload pressures, so now I’m short of placements for several students for January!

This is the same for all clinical practitioners, not just doctors. If my students don’t complete their placements, they won’t be able to graduate.

I’ve been doing this job for 11 years and have never before found it this hard to find/retain placements. We’re past the saturation point now, so opening up more places at this point will inevitably mean poorer quality training. We’ve already increased numbers per placement as this has been a growing problem since well before Covid!

I was an ITU nurse for nearly 10 years. I left after my second child as my flexible working request was denied and I just couldn’t find child care around my shifts.

During the pandemic there were adverts on FB asking for anyone with ITU experience to work in the local hospital. I emailed them and explained my availability around 2 children at home, no family childcare and around my husbands job. It was mainly offering a couple of hours on an evening and then on a weekday. I got rejected as they said ‘Work a full 12 hour shift or don’t work’ So I didn’t work. It’s shit like this that causes the staffing crisis

The Tories are keen for the NHS to fail so they can sell it off to their mega rich chums.

It's been a long term strategy.

@RoxytheRexy that is the sort of stuff they need to sort out. 12hr shift must be impossible for people with kids, no paid childcare is open those sorts of hours.

@Lockdownbear

We shouldn't be relying on EU workers for any sector we should be training AND Retaining enough UK people.

It can't just be the money that puts people off staying in the NHS, what else is going on that needs to change to encourage more people to return to NHS.

Thats one POV but another would be that pulling the plug on EU workers BEFORE getting UK people trained is an act of national self harm. Then trying to poach workers from low income countries to make up the shortfall, immoral.

There is also the issue that there are less young people entering the workforce, as our population ages, which makes increasing immigration of older HK Chinese (3m) quite remarkable.

Why can't it just be the money? Do we have a shortage of people wanting to be Hedge fund managers, earning 80k p.a. ?

80k vs 25k decisions decisions.

Thinking of the EU staff, why were we relying on them?

Did other EU countries rely on British workers? Its not just the NHS Construction was the same loads of EU nationals proping it up.
Meanwhile our own young people struggle to get Apprenticeships and other Training places.
Then we moan about huge numbers being unemployed or without the right qualifications.

I do note the ICU nurse who left the NHS because of the shift patterns that is something the NHS need to desperately sort out.
For too long they've go away with - those are the hours take it or leave it - that attitude just doesn't work.

@4pmwinetimebebeh

No. They desperately need to remove tuition fees for nursing and reinstate the bursery. It’s put off thousands of potentially brilliant nurses. The course includes hours of placement including shifts etc and with the fees and no support it’s impossible for most mature students/parents. That would make a huge difference.

Eh? The bursary was reinstated in 2020.

I’ve seen lots adverts for care sector but when you click they all come up as mim wage jobs so hardly an improvement or incentive for anyone do it over any other time.