To wonder why healthcare is so short staffed.

[malificent7]

I'm a new-ish AHP and starting a new job in September. It will be my 2nd role since graduating. I'm not in nursing but I am aware of the stresses of that job.

I do like my role but have experienced some bullying but most people have been lovely, the pay is ok, the pension is good and there will always be jobs in pandemics and recessions. The degree course was especially interesting.

Of course I have some idea why there are staff shortages and subsequent workload but just wanted to gather your thoughts and see if my suspicions are correct.
Would also be great to hear from people who actually did leave and reasons why.

[Lapland123]

Agree with all that’s been described above
i have very recently left as

no suppprt by management to staff a failing service
left to do loads of absent colleagues work for no extra pay
colleagues taking long term sick leave leaving those of us left behind with their work
patients and families then complaining about the service- but there is no service! If you’re the one at work you’re the one who gets it in the neck
huge real time pay cut since tories can in and kept us well below inflation rises for 12 years- so my salary had effectively dropped by 38%

[traintraveller]

OP I knew this was going to be you when I read the title. You've started so many threads on your new career and job options - not that there's anything wrong with that. What is it you want us to tell you?

[Hazelthecat]

I used to work for the NHS and left due to very low pay, long inflexible shifts and regular unsocial hours, bullying and sexist culture, timed toilet breaks, high responsibility and blame culture for mistakes, few progression opportunities and lack of support for staff dealing with death and trauma on a regular basis. It wasn't hard to find a job with better pay and better conditions than that!

[Topgub]

@malificent7

You sound pretty money focused op.

I doubt the public sector is for you.

[SofiaSoFar]

@ifoundthebread

To me this is why. 5 years training to be paid the same as someone who picks knickers in a warehouse. I personally couldnt imagine putting myself through years of hard work to get a job with unimaginable amounts of stress, a work load thats unmanageable to be paid the same as someone who works 6-2, 1 weeks training and no crazy workloads.

I think £14/hr after tax for picking in a warehouse is pushing it a bit, but I get your point.

(£14/hr take home pay is ~£40k per year, gross.)

[Cornettoninja]

@Topgub

@malificent7

You sound pretty money focused op.

I doubt the public sector is for you.

No one can afford to be completely altruistic when it comes to how they fund their existence. It’s gradually become the case that public sector jobs simply don’t afford a large percentage of employees the luxury of more than a basic (if that) standard of living.

Of course that’s a similar story across lots of industries but there’s a tipping point where people simply can’t afford to work in the jobs the rest of society needs to function. Not a great place to be generally when things like healthcare are crying out for staff.

[BorisJohnsonsHair]

Brexit.
Chronic underfunding.
Massive amounts of stress to staff.
Covid.

[BorisJohnsonsHair]

Oh and charging for health professional degrees

[Pasithean]

Currently in hospital. There are three nurses doing their masters in nursing . They are all from the African continent and are planning to go to Australia as soon as they have qualified to join family.

[Beanniebaby22]

@KohlaParasaurus

The NHS is an institutionally abusive employer. Senior management seem to be able to float between roles, never taking the consequences for failure, collecting golden hellos and golden goodbyes and bonuses and gongs from Her Majesty. Those at the coal face are never allowed to feel as if they're doing a good enough job. Meeting performance targets results in tighter targets. An effective working department will be punished for its success with "efficiency savings". Systems and regulations and procedures seem to change every five minutes. Frustration at not being able to give patients, for whom we DO care, the sort of treatment we would ideally like to give them and the constant worry that we'll make a mistake due to exhaustion or trying to juggle multiple tasks. There is little official support if something goes wrong and there will always be someone prepared to stick a knife in your back for no reason other than to entertain themselves. Pay is down in real terms and we turned up, masked and gowned up, and worked during the pandemic and those Thursday claps is the only reward we've ever had. Is that enough?

(Recently left the NHS workforce after 36 years and currently very angry about some of the things I've experienced or had to do over that time.)

This is exactly why ☝🏼

[Girliefriendlikespuppies]

Loads of reasons but where I worked there was a deliberate policy of not filling posts when a member of staff went on maternity leave, reduced their hours or retired. This was to save money.

The workload has also increased, I work in the community and the local population has grown, thousands more homes but no increase in nurses.

Now a lot of nurses leave as the workload is not manageable or safe as well as the terrible money.

I am in a specialist nurse post and hold my own caseload, I make autonomous clinical decisions and hold a high level of responsibility for around 30 grand a year (if I worked FT.)

[Iluvfriends]

Staff are leaving the NHS in droves to join better paid agency and guilds where they can earn 2 to 3 times more apparently.

What's their answer to that......employ anyone....there's so many new staff that are coming in and they just aren't interested. They want an easy day, to do as little as possible and do not care about getting even the basics right. It's so frustrating and puts more pressure on us that do give a damn.

[AndreaC74]

I’m a senior AHP. We’ve not been able to recruit properly for ages.
I think it’s partly as people want fully remote jobs. We offer hybrid but that’s not good enough apparently

No wonder with that attitude..

No AHP expects to work from home, thats a ridiculous suggestion, would they have to take home visits????

If you want to retain staff (the easiest and quickest thing to sort out) try pay?

After than look at free training, parking, more leave, more flexibility.

None of this is rocket science.

BUT we chose to leave the EU and then charge EU workers a fortune to look after us in visas and health insurance, so its hardly surprising, as the world starts to value healthcare staff (a lot better than UK) we are struggling.

[addictedtotheflats]

Burn out
Abuse from patients
Pay which doesn't reflect responsibility
Inflexible shifts
Constant texts about overtime
Unrealistic expectations and workload
Having to think about work on days off
Feeling shit about not being able to provide adequate care
Crap skill mix as all senior staff leave
I could go on and on and on

[Sloth66]

Low pay, low status. Low staffing levels.
Relentless workloads and high stress.
Heavy responsibility, but low authority
Working unsocial hours.
Ridiculous numbers of forms and checks to complete, forever being added to by managers sat miles away in cosy offices .
Blame culture with constant criticism, nothing ever good enough.
No praise for work done well.
Bullying never addressed or dealt with.
Staff cliques. If your face fits, expect an easier rota and workload.

[Voerendaal]

I retired 2 years ago after 35 years in the nhs. The last 20 years I was a senior sister in icu.
The stress in that job was unbelievable. Everything that people have said is true. The thing that keeps people working in the nhs is usually the patients and/ or the team. In the last 13 years as a band 7 my pay never changed. I was worse off.
However I have worked with some amazing people. The clinical staff at the coal face are brilliant as the job is so hard. Yes some people are lazy but I am pretty sure you get that in all places of work.
The managers - often senior nurses often forget what it is like and accept the ridiculous pressures and goals pressed on them by senior management and never stand up for the clinical staff. More jobs and protocols pushed onto staff who when we complain are told we have no choice. If we complain about staffing saying it is dangerous we are made to feel like a troublemaker or someone who hasn’t got a can do attitude .
I am pretty sure everyone working particularly as a nurse or doctor could write reams - I could go on forever but it is boring. Everyone knows about it but nothing changes.
I still work bank shifts as I need to supplement my pension. I still love looking after patients. I still get cross when people with no experience of a specialist area bring in rules and protocols that do not fit. But at least I can go home and not get stressed and cross with these people as I did before.

[Quizzed]

It's the hours and shifts available if they were more family friendly then there would be less people leaving. People don't want to work every weekend/evening. Also the money isn't great for the stress that you are put through.

[CoreyTaylorsbiggestfan]

I think it's because your relatively new! I'm mid 30s and if I don't become a manager (I'm band 6 now)I won't get a pay rise as I'm at the top of my band and that will stay they say same for the next 30 years..... even with extended skills (which I now have to assess patients, provide a differential diagnosis and treatment plan for the patients, going to do my nurse prescribing next year) I will still be on the same wage!

Chronic short staffing, too many students and not enough staff (burn out from constant 1-1 teaching whilst under immense pressure of short staffing).

Tbh I should have been a AHP I know a lot of therapists (OT and physios) who have a better balance.

I am often looking for alternatives

[ChristmasFluff]

Physio. Left after 35 years. Covid killed any joy left in the job - was finally sick of the excessive stress for crap pay. I was no longer NHS, where the added red-tape made everything even more stressful.

Now work double the hours at a low-stress job - that my co-workers consider to be stressful but compared to physio it's a walk in the park - and every extra minute is paid, unlike the hours of unpaid overtime I used to do as a physio.

Within 3 months I was earning the same hourly rate as after 35 years in physio.

When mandatory vaccination came in, we lost many care workers. When it was scrapped, they were all invited back. Not one took up the offer. Shop work and cleaning pay the same and are way less demanding.

Give it a couple of years and you'll know first-hand exactly why healthcare is haemorrhaging staff

[TravellingSpoon]

@Scepticalwotsits

From a relative that works in healthcare, (clerical)one of there hugest bug is that everything is so manual, there is a lack of joined up technology. It means they just throw budget and people at the problem, but invariably the budget isn’t enough so there isn’t enough people so people get stressed and burnt out.

if there was a better IT and people of the caliber to use it you wouldn’t need as many people, the ones working would be less stressed or more efficient and the budget saved could be put back into the front line.

Oh yes, this.

Before moving to a clinical role, I worked in NHS admin within the bank team. We had to send out all of our payslips to all the bank team (between 200 and 400 staff per month) by hand. All the labels had to be manually produced following the most complicated procedure and then manually added to each envelope. It was such a ballache and someone somewhere had worked out how much each payslip cost to produce but no solution had been found to get round it, except that all of us permanent staff had payslips with our addresses on them so they could be posted to homes if needed.

I left because there was constant shuffling about of management, constant changing of goalposts and everything changed so fast it made us feel quite seasick.

Plus the stress of going home and knowing that shifts were so understaffed on certain wards, MH wards at that. Staff had not been found to cover them and I was constantly nervous. Bank staff wanted nights and weekends so day shifts were left unallocated.

[DocMarteens]

I was treated badly by b7 managers as a b6 (many dehumanising instances but working nights 1 week back from mat leave is an example of just do what we want and to hell if it's impact on you).

Then treated badly by b8 managers when a band 7 (overruled, blamed, not given autonomy to manage well)

So tried to change things as b8 (was expected to miss my kids' nativities, isolated, blamed for general systemic issues etc)

So moved to private medicine. Worse pay but valued and listened to.

[PancakesWithCheese]

Senior management seem to be able to float between roles, never taking the consequences for failure, collecting golden hellos and golden goodbyes and bonuses and gongs from Her Majesty

This is spot on. They move people around from job to job. One day someone will be a matron, the next they’re suddenly head of Risk, or the Quality lead. Despite never seeing a job advert come out or any interviews taken place. No one else gets a chance.

Our intranet is full of the same managers getting awards, handshakes, endless recognition whilst getting promoted higher and higher. And I’ve worked in a few Trusts so it’s not a one off thing.

[sjxoxo]

I don’t work in the field but isn’t it obvious the pay is crap, for a very stressful job in a very stressful environment.. I wouldn’t do a job that combines those three factors tbh. Plus it’s physical, sometimes shift work. Other than maybe a ‘feel good factor’, what is the advantage to working in healthcare towards the middle-bottom of the pay grades?? I can’t see a reason why one would to be honest, unless you were going to climb the ladder and aim for a high paying role. X

[kw1091]

I posted this as a thread on Twitter yesterday detailing my current experience as a midwife

In case you live under a rock or you’re an arsehole that doesn’t believe how bad staffing is in the NHS get a load of this…
I want to preface this by saying I love my job. It’s tough, and I’ve had times where I’ve wondered why on earth I do it. But I truly love it, it’s a privilege.

I am a community midwife, I work 37.5 hours a week and that consists of 4 x 9.5 hour days (including weekends). I am also rota’d for 2 days and 2 nights on call to support the home birth team.
This week I have worked Mon, Tues & Weds 08:00-18:00 & 1
7.5 hour bank shift (overtime) on the delivery suite. Mainly for extra money, but also to keep my skills up. Tuesday was also one of my days on call, at anytime I could have been called from my clinic out to a home birth.
I am scheduled to work this weekend, Saturday and Sunday 08:00-18:00 and Sunday night is a night on call. This means that there is every possibility I can do a 9.5 hour day (we get a 30 min UNPAID lunch break) and then at any time in the night be called out.
I’ve just received an email from my manager, who is incredibly supportive, fair & frankly just wonderful to say that staffing in the unit is extremely low this weekend. And while we’ll be a last resort, those of us in the community may well be called in to work at the hospital.
I think this is her gently saying “expect a call”. The email also said that the on call midwives (me and a member of the home birth team) should try our best to finish clinics so we can rest as it’s likely we’ll be called into the unit.
This means two things… 1. It means home birth services will be suspended. We are removing choice from our care. Choice is the most important part of the care I provide, and by removing the option of home birth we are not doing our job.

1. It also means that on Sunday I may have to work 08:00-18:00 and then 19:30-08:00. That’s a 22.5 hour day. On what planet is that safe? My job is to provide safe care and how on earth can I do that on a 22.5 hour day?!

That works out as a 66.5 hour week. My salary is £37,000 a year. I’m lucky I get London waiting on my wage. On an average week when I work 37.5 hours my take home pay works out at about £14 p/h. On this potentially 66.5 hour week that works out as £7.80 p/h.
I can’t blame my manager, it’s not her fault. I can’t blame the trust I work for, it isn’t their fault. This is a National crisis. I won’t be the only midwife working like this this weekend. In fact midwives work like this every single day.
Something has got to change. Staffing issues lead to unsafe care. We’re seeing it all the time, every day. Staffing issues lead to women having their choices removed. Staffing issues lead to staff burnout. It’s a vicious cycle.

[TravellingSpoon]

That is terrible @kw1091 , but sadly I am not shocked 😥

I hope you and your colleagues manage this weekend.