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.

This sounds awful. (And I am an evil NHS manager). You could ask for a job evaluation to get this work on a higher banding. But to be honest it will be easier to find a new job.

Dh's EA gets 45 k a year and all she really does is manage his outlook diary, take minutes, arrange wider meetings and organise corporate entertainment. It's ridiculous to be honest. I would think you could walk into a job like that!

Same here op, my nhs admin job has become so stressful, loads more responsibility and at band 2 (band 3 in other trusts) so not even £21k.

The salary you quote doesn't include London weighting, Op. Which you will most definitely be getting.

It sounds like a terrible workplace to be part of. I hope you find something else soon.

I don't think it's just NHS. My job is the same and not nhs. It's just a shit working environment for everyone at the moment as everyone is waiting to see whether to hire people or wait out the current times which aren't great. I don't get sick pay and paid a very low wage for what I do as well so now I'm burnt out can't even just call in sick even though I feel like I can't take it anymore. Best thing to do would be to look for another job imo.
Sorry you are having a bad time though OP,

Not the experience of people I know who are admins in the NHS. It really depends on the culture of the team you work for, more than the NHS as a whole.

What sort of team are you working for? Can you ejaculate? Are you suicidal!? Those two questions don't seem relevant to each other in a triage!

Personally I believe a huge number of NHS admin jobs are BS. Its paperwork for the sake of paperwork and people make more admin to justify their jobs.

@MajesticWhine "This sounds awful. (And I am an evil NHS manager). You could ask for a job evaluation to get this work on a higher banding. But to be honest it will be easier to find a new job."

If they are anything like my old Trust they will fall back on the good ol' "reasonable requests" clause. That's what I used to do!

😯 what if they had given notice on their old jobs ! That's awful

Just to chime in. I am in an NHS admin role (same band and outside of London - and I earn more than OP so I would definitely suggest you have that looked into).

I love my job. I can't foresee me leaving the NHS, only moving upwards. I've been employed in my current role for 3 years and I'm a bit of a sole worker within a wider team, who as fantastic. I have a hybrid role which means I'm in the office sometimes and on the ward other times. The mix is good. I get to interact with clinical and non-clinical staff, patients and families.

The whole trust I work for is tight knit and supportive. I work extra bank shifts picking up work where they have admin gaps and I'm now also a firm part of some other lovely teams around the trust.

What you are describing is not acceptable, and I'm sure it goes on elsewhere too. However it isn't everywhere. Where you work makes a huge difference it seems. What I will say is, we spend a lot of our waking hours at work, so be somewhere you enjoy.

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I would put my foot down and say the expectations are unreasonable and I would also make a complaint to HR. I would complete the amount of work that is possible within my working hours, with the best of my ability, without rushing through it or missing breaks and if I was unable to get through all the work expected, i.e. the work of at least two/three employees, alone, then that just proves how unreasonable it is to put such responsibility onto me alone. Don't let them take the piss.