Aibu to think the nurse crisis could be solved if they had an incentive for people to become nurses

[Starsinyoureyes13]

A student nurse doesn't get paid to study and train on the wards. 37.5 hours and due to lack of nurses they are working alongside nurses wouldn't it be better to pay the trainee nurses and give nurses a payrise rather than NHS squandering money on £60 pound an hour agency staff?

Retention is the biggest issue facing NHS staffing. There is no point in training nurses, midwives and doctors, only for them to change career or work abroad. To improve retention, pay and conditions need to improve across the NHS. A consistent below inflation pay rise for a start is completely unacceptable, and has pushed many NHS staff into poverty and relying on food banks.

There are a whole host of issues surrounding nursing and retention, but I have to say, being such an inflexible job is a huge part of the problem.

Most nurses are women. And women are usually the ones in a caring role, be if for children, elderly parents, whoever.

Nursing doesn't really fit with family life. For example I could be working nights once week, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. The next week day shifts, 13 hours, Tuesday Wednesday and Friday.

How do you arrange childcare for this? Most childminders won't do it. And nurseries won't. Not everyone has family that flexible to help in such a way

It's a nightmare

I agree with that, although it's far from the only issue.

And making those qualifications degrees was a mistake. Those debates were being had as far back as Project 2000.

@miniwh I think this is an excellent point about how we can make nursing more family friendly - changing shift patterns are clearly an issue for many who have childcare requirements.

@TartanGirl1

Was literally just about to say the same.

Its fascinating.

You don't see it with any other profession and its nearly always from people who clearly don't have a clue.

Pure sexism

@miniwh

Are you a single parent?

@miniwh agree. Ridiculous that a day shift your expected to start at 7am with kids no mercy for school holidays and then on top of your day it's assumed you can continue to work 13hr shifts. Somethings got to give I'm not sure why the NHS don't introduce a 9-3 shift it would be bliss.

No, but my husband worked 9-5 Monday to Friday, in his chosen profession. Like most people, he worked 9-5 Monday to Friday

The best I ever got was a twilight shift. It started at 9.30pm and finished at 1.30am. I would then get ready for bed, sleep, and start the day as usual

I think part of the problem with nursing is that it has historically been a predominantly female career.
In a patriarchal society this has lead to nurses being undervalued, disrespected and underpaid with chronic understaffing and the expectation that extra time (breaks, end of shifts) will be worked without pay. Bullying is rife.

Train drivers (predominantly male) have arguably less training and knowledge and less responsibility than a nurse and yet their remuneration is a lot better and they are not subject to as much abuse in the job.

My daughter's friend is a newly qualified nurse and cannot wait to leave the NHS.
She was subjected to a lot of racism at work during Covid related to her Chinese heritage. Nurses are expected to put up with racism, disrespect, abuse, sexual harassment etc at work from patients and in my view this is not properly dealt with. We need to get to grips with this stuff and not simply seek to entice nurses away from poorer countries who need nurses themselves.

It’s a ‘vocation’.

The idea of ‘vocation’ is what has kept nurses down, it creates an idea that they should be saintly and the privilege of the work should be enough. Whilst it is a privilege to be with people, advocate for them and care for them at their most vulnerable point, it doesn’t pay the bills and it takes an enormous toll on nurses’ own mental health and emotional well-being. It allows politicians and policy makers to clap on their doorsteps but offer nothing in the way of tangible improvements in the way of pay and conditions.

Advances in technology have been vast in the last 30 years and nursing has had to keep up with that. Nurses roles have also expanded. Nurses have to be academically able to make clinical decisions and understand the consequences of the decisions they make. Studies have shown that the patients of degree qualified nurses have better outcomes than those of nurses with lesser academic training.

There absolutely should still be a focus on compassionate care but it should not be at the expense of academic ability.

Hospitals still need to cover 24 hrs though ,when I was a nurse I was ward based so whilst I agree it's not family friendly at all ,how would it work if everybody needs different shift patterns?

I can only assume it's from people that think nurses just wipe arses. Not my opinion but seen it said plenty!

@miniwh

So why is it down to your job role to provide you with hours you think are suitable for childcare and not his?

If you work 3 12 hour shifts you only need child 9 to 5 3 days a week.

How is that any worse than needing it 5 days a week?

If you work nights or weekends you might not even need that and once they're in school you're laughing

Everyone I know who does shifts dies them precisely because they need much less actual childcare

@miniwh sorry a little confused here, surely you would just need childcare for 9-5 Monday to Friday, not to cover different shifts?

The idea that ot should be 'more flexible'(it already is really flexible imo) I'm order to allow women to be solely responsible for childcare is just more sexist bullshit

@Birmabrite, I know, same with our band 5s. I don't think you can necessarily replace experience and knowledge with a degree and specialist practice qualifications.

I'd agree with this, there are so many comparisons that can be made. I'm a paramedic and whilst we have historically been male dominated (much less so now) we come under the umbrella of the NHS which is female dominated, and if you compare the divergance in out terms and conditions to fire fighters and police (male dominated) the difference is stark. We are expected to retire years later, we are expected to respond to emergencies at 67yo (often co responding with the police and fire service), driving on blue lights at night when night vision begins to degrade from age 40. Lifting, confined spaces, violence, and aggression. The way the govenment get away with treating the NHS is a joke. There is a reason doctors and dentists negotiate their pay, terms and conditions away from the rest of us.

Lots of people train to becomes nurses, but not enough stay in the job. I would summarise the reasons as follows:

• Poor pay
• Physically hard work
• Antisocial hours
• Inflexible 24hr rostering (impossible for many parents as their nursing job is usually the less well remunerated of the couple)
• Horizontal bullying
• Bullying from management
• Lack of support for newly qualified nurses
• General disdain from the public (see many of the comments suggesting nursing doesn’t require a degree or even basic mathematical literacy)

I am still a nurse but now have a pleasant and coveted outpatient role that hospitals never struggle to recruit for. I left my much harder ward based role because shift work is too difficult as primary carer if your manager is inflexible. Most nurses are women and most women have children who need a degree of supervision for a substantial portion of their mothers’ working lives. If nursing was better paid perhaps some couples would rethink their approach to childcare, but it is unrealistic to expect the higher earning (usually male) partner to reduce their working hours to accomodate their partners’ exhausting lower paid job.

The training doesn’t need to change. The training is not the problem. Recruitment is not the problem. Retention is the problem. So in the discussion regarding staffing I can’t see how degree vs not a degree is relevant. We need to be looking at mainly working conditions and pay as well. But conditions is the main issue.

I don't think people are saying to offer individual shift patterns to each and every single person. But for instance most trusts regularly rely on BANK a 9-3 shift would recruit a lot more people. To be honest after working 10 years plus I don't think it's unreasonable for managers to consider this shift pattern. I think some nursing homes are like this also and allow carers to work those hours.

Nobody is saying scrap the 13 hour shifts. But the 9-3 could be used an extras/floaters on the busy wards. When the heavy wards aren't picked up by bank staff it means they put the shifts out as enhanced and it means band 2 can earn £22 per hour some shifts.

The idea of ‘vocation’ is what has kept nurses down, it creates an idea that they should be saintly and the privilege of the work should be enough. Whilst it is a privilege to be with people, advocate for them and care for them at their most vulnerable point, it doesn’t pay the bills and it takes an enormous toll on nurses’ own mental health and emotional well-being. It allows politicians and policy makers to clap on their doorsteps but offer nothing in the way of tangible improvements in the way of pay and conditions.

The debate about 'vocation' is an interesting one. I have a friend who is a vet who emigrated from Poland. She said in Poland as a vet (along with other 'vocations') she was expected to work for crap pay, whilst being greatful for the service she was so 'fortunate' to be in a position to provide her community. She left Poland learnt English and has remained here since.

It seems that the word 'vocation' is an excuse to treat people like crap, whatever the political system.

I'm a Paramedic and have been for nearly two decades, it is not my 'Vocation'. Yesterday I didn't spend my whole day waiting outside hospital, woohoo, I saved a young persons life (for now), it was a 'good' shift but also sad. If I won half a million on the lottery this week, I wouldn't be in for my next shift, I know that for sure. You can like your job (sometimes), be good at it, be reasonably happy with your career choice, without it needing to be declared as a 'vocation'.

I’m a student MH nurse and, before that, was a (very experienced…) mental health support worker. Working with people that are suffering mental ill health/distress is my vocation. I would do it for free and, to a certain extent, have. Now, that doesn’t mean I can afford to do it for free and it certainly doesn’t mean that my love for the work should be exploited. If the pay is so bad that I end up leaving nursing to work in an office (or, and this is more likely, go and work in the MH private sector) that’s the NHS’ loss. I’m bloody good at what I do, they should pay me accordingly, regardless of whether or not I enjoy it.

It used to be that you pretty much had to stay single for the duration of their career so pesky children and husbys didn't interfere with shifts.
Some places put newly married nurses on 3 month nighr shift stints so they didn't get pregnant (because of course, no-one has sex during the day!)