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.

it is getting harder and harder to retain nurses, teachers, nursery nurses, carers. There is so much flexibility in the average work place now that in comparison caring roles dealing with members of the public are so much harder to fill.
I think 50% of Nurses are recruited globally to work in UK hospitals.
Who will want to do a customer facing job when you can work from home and choose when you work? Recruitment will get harder and harder

Nursing isn’t one homogenous entity though. An aquaintace is a district nurse and has done training so she is able to prescribe. Quite often she is correcting GPS or consultants and they prescribe something that conflicts with other medication so she has to go sort out.

another friend is a ITU nurse. Their two jobs couldn’t be any more further apart. Also one of DHs friends wife is a ward nurse.

The first and thirds are probably is more akin to ‘traditional’ nursing but the level of medical knowledge the first has learned through in work training, and they have been paid to train. But having a degree helps here because it’s installing a way of self learning which otherwise wouldn’t be possible.

Some nursing is very high level and very highly skilled

Isn't it weird how no one ever suggests we should solve the medical staffing crisis by making the medical degree easier ?
The sexism is striking

"Have you got a C in GCSE Maths or Maths Functional Skills Level 2?" is presumably the easiest way for a university to check that the candidate is numerate.

I passed GCSE so long ago that I feel like I've forgotten it, but I know I'm capable of that level of mathematical stuff, and it would probably come back to me quickly enough when needed, especially with a little extra study.

It's also an easy, readily available way for most candidates to prove that they're capable of getting to that level of maths, as most students do already have a good enough grade in GCSE maths (though obviously, due to all kinds of circumstances, some won't have it, and will need to do GCSE or Functional Skills) — I think around two thirds get a 4 at the moment?

Technically I guess an entrance exam of sorts would be possible, but then they'd have to administer it in a controlled setting and make sure it's fair and representative of the skills needed, and everybody would need to prepare for a maths test when they might not have done a maths exam for ages, and it sounds like so much hassle for the uni compared to just asking for GCSE or Functional Skills.

Fair pay and reasonable work conditions are the traditional incentive to join a career. We should start there.

How much does a nurse use Trigonometry, solving simultaneous equations, pythagoras etc in their typical day?

which is why functional skills is accepted instead if necessary.

Agree with this 100%.

It is actually quite important for nurses to have good levels of numeracy in order that they don't kill their patients when calculating medication doses. I'm not sure it is an area we want nurses to be less confident in!

@EachandEveryone

I’m a Finance Manager.

It undoubtedly has busy times etc and I have responsibilities of course but it is undoubtedly MUCH easier than being a nurse. I earn £55k and I’m not especially well paid in comparison to others doing similar roles.

Learned on the job, no degree and a high level of flexibility.

My manager often says ‘when are you in next?’ as I head off.

I'm picking yours to quote, I've seen some lovely nurses quit the nhs because of stress to be replaced by agency nurses who just don't care enough and leave the majority of work to permanent staff who earn a fraction. If they retained nurses by giving them on top of their wage an extra £20 an hour then that's 3 permanent nurses rather than 1 agency nurse gaining 60 pounds for little work. Nhs nurses put their heart and souls into where they work to then not only deal with their workload but agency staff who don't have a clue how that ward works.

The nhs is completely broken and often nurses feel the weight of that as the profession who spends the most face to face time with patients. Reduced staffing and the expectation that nurses will be all things to all people has burnt the workforce out. The job is hugely underpaid for the skill and responsibility level. Enthusiastic new nurses quickly realise they’re undervalued and disrespected by their employer and they leave. But no, the answer is not to improve terms and conditions according to some, it is to get rid of degree training🙈I despair and wonder what people think nurses actually do. I agree the sexism is striking topgub. No one ever suggests lower education for doctors or AHP. It’s sickening.

Neither does a doctor but I'd certainly like them to have GCSE maths. Being able to do what is fairly basic maths (and a C at GCSE IS basic). It's about being able to be a critical problem solver, to apply complex rules to decision making and to think beyond simply 2+2=4.

Nurses are the final "line of safety defence" before a medication is administered. People would be shocked if they knew just how common it is for nurses to pick up on medication errors made by medics or pharmacy etc.

The competencies required of trainee nurses are far more vast and complex than the public probably realises. A good level of basic academic ability in maths and English is the very least we should be asking.

Exactly.

It's not just the nurse training OP. Many people cannot hack the work load and environment so even with course amendments what about the actual job role itself? It's laughable.

I presume those who think that it shouldn't require a degree would also be happy with physios/SALT/radiographers/Occupational therapists also not requiring one? All follow the same banding as nursing staff.

@titchy sorry yes typo. Well more a weird autocorrect, my phone often changes that to brag if I'm not concentrating

Nurses haven't always had all these degrees though have they? And it worked perfectly well before!

Dr's.... well you expect them to have qualifications and high ones at that because everyone sees them as the "boss" not just that it's nurses who bleep the Dr in an emergency not the other way round.

That's really not very typical in nursing - having set shifts each week. Your mum was just incredibly lucky because that just doesn't happen for the majority. It's why I left nursing years ago. They just weren't flexible enough.

That is kinda weird. But then I used to have a phone which tried to autocorrect "probably" to "Peugeot". Every. Single. Time. I've never owned a Peugeot and pretty much never had reason to refer to it. Use "probably" quite a lot, though.

@Cabsnotlint

Nursing has been a degree course for almost 20 years and has changed a huge amount in that time.

In an emergency my first port of call is ERT. Made up of doctors and nurses

What agency nurse do you know who gets £60/hr?

Ward nurses at my (central London) get about £25/hr for an agency shift. Speciality areas, i.e. ICU nurses get paid the most because of the specialist skills needed, get up to £45 and that is only in times of massive staffing crises. Most central London hospitals are paying ICU nurses 30-40/hr. I've only heard of closer to 45 during covid when we were already stretching patient care to 1 icu nurse to 4 patients instead of 1:1. There are agencies that pay way over that, however the shifts don't come up often and most trusts require you to escalate high in the food chain to authorise "going out to high cost" so basically you need to be up shit creek for staffing before you can book one.

If money was enough to keep nurses then the ones on those high rates wouldn't also be leaving in droves. As a profession we are burnt out. Conditions need to change or we will just have to keep recruiting in from abroad to plug the gap.

Senior nurses ANPs have to do clinical decision making and diagnose. They are also able to prescribe. There seems to be a misconception by the public about what nurses do. Many of the jobs nurses used to do go to the HCAs or Nurse associates. The days of being a doctor's assistant is over .

@Natty13

I think the point is that the nhs is wasting billions on agency staff (nursing and medical) rather than investing in keeping permanent staff.

You better tell that to my best friend who is ICU outreach and is paged by ward doctors to attend their deteriorating patients, advise treatment and run resuscitation attempts every single shift. Because of the degree, specialist ICU qualifications, years of experience, advanced resuscitation certification, Masters. Often totally alone because the doctor attached to her team will be in A&E or dealing with emergencies elsewhere.

Hi all, I seen some comments on teachers salaries, I can't comment on that as I don't have a clue what they earn or their day to day workload I'm afraid. But please feel free to vent how you feel, if someone somewhere picks up on low morale in workplaces maybe a change will happen but again pigs may fly. We are just wage slaves, hoping for one day life will get a little better.

This is unfair. I only have a 'D' in maths but I know how to read a label! I just found the learning of maths very stressful based on not being extremely good at it whereas I excelled in other subjects, I ended up being quite afraid of learning it. And nobody with an M.A is stupid and unable to learn about dosages and all that goes with it.

And, I wanted to do Psychology 'AS' level but had to resit GCSE maths for that. I went to one lesson for the maths, hated it and never went back. Nobody noticed it and I still got my AS in psychology. Which involved basic maths of course, but I didn't struggle.