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?

This issue with childcare comes because shift patterns change. I work 3 x 12 hour night shifts and my OH 8am - 4pm, but the nights I work change every single week, so you have to pay for days you aren't going to use.

I couldn't work nights for health reasons so that's out. It doesn't suit all families.

Absolutely this

Surely it the answer has to be getting nurses to stay. I don't know how people have any hope of arranging childcare to cover 12 hr shifts and rotating shifts.

Surely that is something they have to look at.

I agree, the inflexible shift patterns seem to be given regularly as one of the reasons for nurses leaving or moving onto cover/bank work.

I know it's not easy when parts of the NHS are 24:7 so cover for nights and weekends is required in some areas, but perhaps there needs to be more split shifts and more flexibility with shift rotations etc so that the needs of the ward/dept can be more readily matched with the staff's available hours.

Or at least give higher pay for the unsocial hours to cover child care etc.

It's a travesty that so many qualified/experienced nurses feel that they have to give up work because they can't cope with the required working hours/shift patterns.

Quite. But that is still something someone with an M.A could do. M.As are difficult and involve so much analytical thinking to even get a just about pass. Maths is involved even in those subjects far removed from it.

My point was if people are intellectual (proven by an M.A) as pps friend was, and want to be a nurse, not letting them based on red tape involving maths is ridiculous. I'd personally never want to be a nurse based on friend's experiences however. Sounds so gruelling and the way they're treated by the NHS is awful.

You can be intellectual as fuck and still be completely at sea when it comes to simple calculations. I'm not really convinced I want my drip rate calculated by someone who can write a beautiful, densely-argued thesis on fifteenth-century French philosophy but can't show evidence of ability to manipulate numbers.

As previous posters have pointed out, though, the degree itself involves having to prove you can do it, so that wouldn't come up in practice, but it's got to be better to avoid wasting everyone's time, including the student's, by requiring evidence of mathematical ability before the course. It would be heartbreaking to put in all that work only to find that your brain just isn't set up for the kind of arithmetic you'll need to practise safely.

If you don't have any maths qualification and you're capable of passing Functional Skills Level 2, it makes sense to do a course anyway — lots of things want maths GCSE or equivalent. At my local college it's free, too.

@Ivegottherona

Suited me.

Meant I didn't need to pay for childcare and me and their dad could split it between us.

Most of the people I've worked with, trained and untrained have been the same.

The people that I know that are leaving are older and are retiring early or are leaving to go to community jobs.

Its certainly not the shifts

All bank and agency staff do 12 hour shifts.

Most pick nights and weekends precisely because it means they don't need childcare and they get paid enhanced rates.

Honestly mn is like an alternative universe sometimes lol.

I have a few staff who are on set shifts but most are ok with getting their shifts in advance so they can plan

The big difference seems to be they don't presume their job takes second fiddle to their ohs.

As a manager is be pretty pissed off if ot did.

There's being family friendly and there's being a mug.

@Topgub lol I don’t do 12 hour shifts. I say what hours I can do and if they want me bad enough they’ll take it. Funnily enough they always do.

@Badbadbunny and @Dinoteeth

And yet countless nurses manage absolutely fine and definitely prefer it. Nurses, carers, nursing home staff.

We already do provide split shifts, set shifts, enhanced pay for nights and weekends. Family friendly policies, term time working etc

Great mat leave. Great sick pay.

Its really not the shift pattern that's the issue.

Not ime anyway.

@Anunusualfamily

I'm sure they do.

Being able to pick and choose is definitely an advantage of bank/agency

It rarely happens here as most prefer to do longer hours and less days for the same or more money.

I'd take something 12 hours over a half shift every time but no one does half shifts so it's never been an issue

A/n are more likely to do half shifts actually

If it was all as plain sailing as you are making it out to be, why are there problems with the retention of nurses?

Most people in my local community work 9 til 5 jobs, none doing night shift that I know of. That's how popular it is!

Very few people carry on with this shift schedule when they have young families.

If someone can explain to me how working 12 hour night shifts means you need no child care and can also get adequate sleep to work safely, I'm all ears.

As for family friendly working, my trust turns down even reasonable flexible working requests. I made one to just work night shifts and not have it mixed with newlt introduced evenings, which meant every week would be doing a mix of 5pm-12.30 and 7.30pm-8am.

You usually don't get your shifts until 2 weeks before, sometimes even closer than that and even then the rota often changes, all due to an absolute lack of staff, which is even worse on the out of hours services.

I left a night post in November last year (the one which declined my flexible working request) and found another night post in the same trust which was happy for me to do nights only. My previous team have only now found a replacement for me, yet another 2 nurses have left during that time. It's dire.

Don't be stupid, you don't need sleep in between night shifts. You just carry on!

An older ex nurse here..when I first started we had night staff and day staff and it worked really well ..those on permanent nights may have looked like death warmed up.at times but the continuity was there and it worked ..a good handover was essential but it was popular and when internal rotation was introduced people from both shifts left in droves to join agencies .

Another issue is there aren't really much Bank/Agency options available in paediatric nursing . It's ridiculous, and they too struggle for stuff. Often even more than adult wards

I knew someone who did permanent nights in a factory. Got home went to bed while OH got kids out to school and went to work. The got up in time to do school pickup, OH came home they had family dinner together. Then they went back to work.

I can easily see how permanent nightshift works for parents of school aged children

No one said you didn't need childcare for nights though.

And ime the retention crisis is caused by lots of factors (low pay, high stress, short staffed, unappreciative and clueless management, pt abuse, ridiculous initiatives that pile on more work with no benefit to pt care, covid, retirement crisis that we've known about for 2 decades, brexit)

The shifts don't even hit the top 10.

If you're willing to throw away your career over a shift pattern you knew about when you started the job, maybe it was never the job for you.

Typical NHS night shifts are 8-8, that would involve about 5 and a half hours sleep. At best.

But upthread they did. Hence my post.

Must have missed where someone said you didn't need childcare for a run of nights

Yes they did. They have implied you save on childcare and then the poster below is selling night shifts that she personally probably has never done. Working 4 nights in a row and who does the school run?
Long term this is unhealthy and dangerous. The issues within nursing won't change you can see from some of the silly opinions on here....

Just because someone works nights. You are entitled to sleep properly like you would if you were doing days.

No.

They said you save on childcare doing shifts

Cause you do.

I know loads who sleep school hours. I know loads who stay up after last shift etc

I totally disagree that shifts are harder for childcare.

But I guess its what you make of it.