No wonder the NHS is struggling - can't quite believe this!

[outpatient]

Today I went to the hospital. On the from door entrance there was a member of staff whose job it was to say "do you have an appointment, so you have any covid symptoms"

That's it. She's was being paid to do that. She was there all morning, just to say that. This is in addition to the receptionist that checks you in when you actually arrive,

Is this not bonkers? NHS is screwed if someone thinks this is entirely reasonable to pay someone to do this.

It is beyond saving, and likely not running out of money just making really shit decisions WITH the money

They do indeed!

@PinkiOcelot

I’ll tell you what is costing the NHS more. Dead wood staff who are off sick constantly, sitting on their arses at home getting paid full pay. They would have been long gone in the private sector.

Ooooooooooooooh, SOMEbody's JEALOUS! 😂 Tried to get a WFH job with the NHS and turned down eh? Yep I thought so! What a remarkably spiteful comment!

Oh and to the OP @outpatient yes it was probably a volunteer.

So WHAT if YOUR Trust has zero volunteers doing this type of role? That means shag-all. Doesn't mean OTHERS don't have them. Nearly ALL of the posters on here say it was probably a volunteer, as they have them where they go (or where they work.) How arrogant and ignorant to assume because YOU have no volunteers, that everyone else is lying, or wrong!

What a strange conclusion to make with so little information.

It's highly likely that member of staff has other duties and was just doing that today or that they are a volunteer.

I love how people who have never set foot in the NHS or worked in it think they are experts in this stuff.

Quoting the Daily Mail is usually a dead giveaway.
Second to that is the usual checklist of public sector workers are all lazy fat cats narrative that is bollocks.

Can't argue with stupid.

Well that escalated quickly.

I think Neanov was just making the point that it might not be a volunteer, not suggesting anyone is lying or wrong.

It's the abuse you get from your own staff that really makes the job worthwhile 🤣

@outpatient isn’t coming back. Shame, cos their arse in still here on a plate, with people ready to hand it back to them.

Why do they need their arse handing to them? Yeah it's probably a volunteer, not a paid worker - the OP made a mistake, so what?

Let’s not let facts get in the way of a MN paracetamol prescribing rant.

I was just going to post that the op was having her arse handed to her on a plate, but you beat me to it.

To get to the root of all the waste you need to go straight to the top.
There always seems to be enough money for hire "diversity managers" on huge salaries, sending staff on LGBT picnics and the like.
My local hospital seems to have an abundance of receptionists who will send you to another desk down the corridor to check in, that receptionist will then, after confirming your arrival, will send you back to sit on the chairs in front of the first reception desk. 20 minutes later the nurse will co.e out calling your name, after spending the last 10 minutes looking for you, and thinking you hadn't turned up.
what an efficient service...not.

Ohhh and what a wild assumption that nobody works in a hospital on this thread. Your post is hypocrisy at best!

Well aren’t you just lovely. Not!

Right back at ya! Clearly hit a nerve eh?!

This absolutely.

I worked in the NHS for a while and the amount of staff off for weeks at a time was appalling. There is no incentive to return to work as they get full pay for being lazy bastards and not bothering.

You can disagree all you want, but please humour me and imagine you have a very painful and disabling health problem(a).

Your doctors have devised a drug regimen for you involving several painkilling drugs, as well as drugs to target other symptoms and drugs to deal with the underlying condition(s). It includes 8 paracetamol tablets per day at specified times, or 224 tablets in 28 days. The largest packet size a pharmacy can sell without a prescription is 32 tablets, and no more than 100 tablets at once. So even if you go to a pharmacy and they're happy to sell you that many paracetamol, you can only buy enough for 12 days before you have to go back and buy more.

Going out is painful, exhausting, time-consuming and requires planning, and perhaps also someone to accompany you. The medications you need to take may mean you're unsafe to drive, so you will need to walk (impossible with your pain), take the bus (makes the journey even longer and more painful) or get a taxi (expensive).

The cost to the NHS of adding paracetamol to the other medications you're being prescribed is negligible, relative to your other healthcare costs, and having it prescribed means that it comes in the same bag as your other drugs at the same time and is enough for the full month, so you don't risk running out and exacerbating your illness, and you don't have to jump through hoops and tire yourself out to get it. Your doctors are all able to see that you're taking regular paracetamol as a component of your treatment, and can get a good idea of whether you're taking it as prescribed.

This kind of scenario is more common than you might think — paracetamol is commonly used as part of management for people with serious health conditions who can't go twatting about picking up packets of 16 paracetamol in Wilko every two days.

@Neanov in my past job I worked with national volunteering teams cross the NHS. One of the main roles for volunteers is being the greeter whether at a reception desk or in OP or at A&E entrances. Post Covid, volunteers in these Covid roles are pretty common.

The Trust could have a paid person in that role but no exec team I know would sign that off as a good use of a paid role in a workforce crisis unless their Covid numbers are so high they have staff shortages again and are utterly desperate to stop Covid getting in even more.

Nationally we are not seeing hospital Covid numbers that high though (yet).

Lol no! Couldn’t be more off the mark.

Hit a raw nerve?! Yeh, thought so!!

Well that put the OP back in there box hence they haven’t returned. Having worked in the NHS and as many others have pointed out would definitely be a PALs volunteer

I had to attend hospital a fair bit just after the first lockdown. Those volunteers were absolutely marvellous. Given that everyone actually attending the hospital were pretty poorly, those people were kind, helpful and very understanding. I for one felt reassured that they were trying to keep us as safe as possible.

Cooee, OP!

Any further contribution to make?

How presumptuous of you to think these people are paid. They are always volunteers the NHS would not be paying people to meet and greet.

So you don't think that NHS staff should reflect society then?

That's what equality and diversity managers do. You will find equivalent posts in all large organisations - which is what NHS Trusts are. Large organisations made up of several thousand people, ideally from a diverse range of backgrounds and ethnicities and sexuality.

Don't you think we should reach all sections of society? To reduce inequalities in our staffing and bring in different experiences so we can reach seldom heard communities of patients.

But let's just jump on yesterday's headline in the right wing press (I'm guessing Mail on fucking Sunday).

I live in hope that one day people will wake the fuck up and see what they are on the verge of losing.

For sure, like my friend kept getting painkillers going for months to the doctors with ever increasing pains until she collapsed and finally someone decided to do some tests. Turned out it was too late to do anything about her cancer and she died three months later.