To think NHS admin jobs are awful

[Whydoibotherto]

I hate my job. I’m a lowly band 3 administrator in a large London hospital and the work keeps getting piled on. I now have to complete triaging forms with patients which involve detailed medical questions, stuff like “can you get an erection”, “can you ejaculate”, “do you feel suicidal”. A job a band 4 health assistant used to do.

On the one hand I have quite serious responsibilities - I managed our reception staff when we had some, manage patient complaints, manage our referrals, manage the clinic diaries, arrange home visits etc but now I also have to sit on reception and answer our call centre phone system as our 3 receptionists left and will not be replaced.

Had a meeting yesterday with my manager who confirmed I will now be doing all of my own work whilst sitting on reception full time. It’s not possible!!

All this for lowly sum of about £21,000 a year and I work full time for this.

A few staff have been signed off with stress and despite me saying this will end up happening to me if they don’t get in some more staff, they just don’t care.

My daughter lives in Australia and I had requested some annual leave in April to visit and my request has been declined due to no staff. They will not even consider bank staff to cover. So basically I can never have time off.

I am looking for a new job. The NHS really is an awful place to work, they do not value their staff one bit.

It's a disgrace. Similar situation working in school admin, sad to say. Such a shame because with better pay and reasonable conditions, these would be great jobs. But £21k a year for all that s**t, no thank you.

Are you not able to find another job?

That’s a disgrace. Have a look for a job with the Civil Service. Fair pay and decent pension. Very flexible too

Have you tried another Trust if that's an option? I've worked in a few, admittedly in managerial roles so possibly getting sh*tted on less but I've found them so variable. My current Trust (out of London) is great although we are always very busy, it's the nature of the beast. In your situation, I'd definitely leave, absolutely not worth the stress and unhappiness.

Ridiculous pay. Hope you find somewhere else asap.

You have my sympathies. I used to have a similar job with a ridiculous workload. I was Band 4 in a London teaching hospital. I was so relieved to retire.

I work in Financial Services admin and the pay is about a third more than that. You'd be snapped up. Have a look elsewhere 💐

It's similar in lots of jobs, DH's company made the two ladies who answered the phones redundant and now wonder why customers are complaining about their calls not getting answered.

The nhs is a horrible place to work, I’m going to be resigning soon. At the very least you could do bank work /NHSp instead and pick your shifts. The civil service was much better for me working conditions: slightly more pay, flexible hours, subsidised gym, much lower stress, career progression. There are other admin jobs you could do in the private sector too with more pay.

Yep that's shit OP. I echo other PP views on leaving. Come to the civil service 😊

My friend (28) got a PA Job in London a few months ago for 70 grand a year. I've never really been around private sector working much as everyone I know has been public sector and honestly I am shocked at the difference in pay. Maybe its worth looking for a job/career change

That's disgusting. You have loads of fab transferable skills. Should be on a lot lot more.

I have looked on civil service website and will keep checking for jobs.

We were due to have 2 receptionists start next week and I’d even done their induction plan but at the last minute Monday I was told senior managers had decided to freeze recruitment and they’d had their employment offers rescinded! They don’t realise it but they had a lucky escape.

That is absolutely awful!!

I have a degree and masters degree I don’t know why the hell I’m doing this shitty job.

There are so many NHS admin jobs available locally to me and are less than £22k a year.

And if you want the job you have to supply 3 years worth of references even if you've been unemployed.

I've been unemployed due to ill health, applied for an NHS admin role and the HR person told I need a reference from my GP.

Oh how I laughed. You'd think NHS HR would KNOW that a GP isn't the right person for a personal referee nor do they have the time.

I checked and checked again but its there in black and white as a "preferred referee". Its all over their local job website.

I gave up in the end and they seem perplexed as to why they can't fill the roles 🤣

Move on OP - you deserve better x

The NHS admin jobs are not all like that, yours is just particularly shit.

I'd like to think we treat our admin team much better than that!

That sounds really tough and shit OP. Out of interest do you know why recruitment is frozen, is it budget? I know the NHS needs funding but didn’t think it was at the stage of not recruiting key roles at all levels of the organisation. Such shit planning as like you say, pile it all on too few people and they either go off sick (bad and costs money) or leave (bad and costs money).

Such shit management.

You're amazing and you deserve better

We are about to have our third restructure in as many years which is why I think they’re just refusing to recruit. The new restructure will just be more work with less staff. The wages are so low that the refusal to employ more staff makes no sense, they are not paying big bucks.

Im dealing with record number of patient complaints. It’s ironic, patients complain about not being able to get through in the phone and they person dealing with the complaint (me!) is the person that doesn’t actually have time to answer the phone as I’m busy doing everything else including sitting on reception!

Our department is the same OP, we get new starters and when they realise what the workload is like they get another job and leave. We are currently 4 members of staff down and everyone is exhausted. My manager is working 70 hours some weeks.

They certainly ask a lot for what they are offering.

But instead of staying and complaining (which too many people do), leave. It sounds like you will be able to find a better paid and easier job, so start looking this weekend.

My manager is working hard too, she used to cover two sites but now covers 5 sites, she’s stressed to her eyeballs, has had time off sick and will probably go off sick again. I think she gets paid the vast sum of 25k a year fulltime.

Serious question: why are you?

You need a rethink about what you want from your work. I imagine decent pay, decent work environment and conditions plus respect for your role and terms of employment from your seniors would all feature?

This weekend start looking and don’t just take anything. You are worth more than this. It’s an absolute shame because the NHS needs intelligent and hard working people but in this instance they don’t deserve you.

When you have your exit interview you can explain exactly why you are leaving ( not that they will care).

Good luck.