Pointless NHS Roles

[ChanelNoFive]

I am an ex-NHS worker. (Department administrator)

Is it unreasonable to think there are so many pointless corporate/non-clinical roles within the NHS. Mainly high up and middle management roles. Examples:

• Events organisers
• Workforce & Organisational Development Leads
• Strategy Leads
• PR/Photographers/Marketing
• Improvement and Culture/Diversity teams
• Roster coordinators
• PMO

Obviously there are non-clinical roles that are essential for the runnings of the NHS. But are a lot of them really needed? I remember seeing all the high up corporate staff thinking “what exactly do you actually do?”

I once knew an NHS electrician. If you ever needed a practically new fridge, freezer, dishwasher etc, he was the man!

It managed 50 years ago before the management structures were put in place. It's gone downhill since then with lots of non jobs created. Take away all the medical staff and they wouldn't have a job. Reverse this and NHS would still run. They need us not the other way round, after all the NHS was created for healthcare.

This rather suggests the number of clinical vs non clinical staff was a matter of debate even 50 years go

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1981/jan/29/the-nhs-number-of-employees

@Pussycat22 take away the admin staff (especially at bands 2 to 4) and the NHS would collapse. Completely. And people would die.

So much ignorance in a single post, it's amazing.

Absolutely! Such ignorance.

As people have said it’s not the roles that are unnecessary it’s where there are poor employees in place. A great admin team member can take so much stress away from clinical teams. A great HR professional can turn around recruitment efficiently, reducing backlog. A great media team member can put out the fires of a hysterical press before it causes alarm by gathering all the facts over the heresay.

Crap employees are the problem here, alongside a very difficult process to get rid of them.

Tiredalwaystired, they'd certainly die if no medical staff! Bet you're admin/management staff!!

What a stupid comment. I bet they would too. But the point is the NHS is a team and it’s the sum of its parts.

You might get a few people a day being seen without any admin, estates, management etc in a hospital but you’d certainly not get the volumes through you do today. Some hospitals have a million people in their community.

Ridiculous.

Of course. But both are needed. I wish I found it difficult to believe that people don't understand that. But I don't.

Tiredalwaystired, but it's the medical staff who " get through the volumes" !!

How? Who has booked in their patient? Ordered the dressings? Made sure all the lights are working in the theatres? Created a patient letter so the patient knows where to go? Recruited the staff in the first place? Made sure the nurse gets paid?

I don't know what the role is but I have been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism last month but not treated yet. I am struggling to eat with a lot of pain. GP put me in for CT. Went to CT they asked if any issues with thyroid, yes. Can't scan, sorry. Get home and immediately get a text to say another CT has been scheduled. I try to call but surgery closed. Try to call radiography, no answer. Tried again, closed. Turned up to CT and went through the same questions, nope, still not medicated and apparently 2 month wait for me to even be seen by endochrinologist. I explained I had tried to contact them and tell the GP but the GP said before he couldn't even contact whoever did the bookings to see if there was a note on the file. Radiologist said there was an email sent after the first one but no one seems to have seen it. Massive waste of time and money.

So sorry you’ve had an awful experience. It isn’t always like that. Speak to the PALS team and make sure it’s captured. If you don’t complain they won’t know and there’s no chance of get the situation improved.

(Although I’m sure someone will be along in a second to say all PALS staff should be made redundant too)

I don't know what the answer is though. Ideally I'd be medicated which might help the pain go away and I'd not need the CT, or actually be able to have one if I still had pain. I can't fault the speed of me having a CT. I can't fault the GP for putting me in for one, other than maybe doing bloods for coeliacs as I had previously asked for and still not got. I don't have anyone to "blame".

@Pussycat22 it's because of non-clinical staff that clinical staff can get on with the work of seeing patients.

You don't understand how hospitals work, do you?

So bizarre how some complain about clinicians spending too much time on admin...then complain that there's admin. While these roles may seem to be offering little to you, they relieve our medics from the management and corporate service functions that are essential to keeping an organisation running efficiently.

I worked admin in the NHS when I was straight out of University, via an agency, who the NHS were paying probably double what they would need to if they paid me directly, and I worked there for over two years. The amount of money wasted on agency fees when they could have just advertised a proper job...it wasn't even like I was just doing temporary cover or something, I was there years. I used to think no wonder the NHS was short of money.

Only because there's a team of non clinical staff who get the patient into my clinics or wards.
Some of the comments on here are hilarious, or would be if they didn't expose the deep ignorance of how the NHS actually functions. Scary.

When black women are many times more likely to die in childbirth than white women just don't think a diversity lead is pointless it could help save lives

When I take my son to outpatients there are about three people on reception chatting. It's never that busy. One person could handle it. Surely one would do. There's always also lots just wandering about.

I don’t think its up to you to work that out though. Write down your experience as it happened and sent it to PALS. It’s enough to say that you had a poor experience and explain it. They can decode that to work out where the pinch points are from there. Feel better soon.

This has been raised and studied and presented at conferences for years. I was researching this 15 years ago. Nobody acts on the findings. We have had diversity leads and programmes for years. Why they are not addressing this is a mystery to me. Actually, having said that, given that there is a desperate shortage of midwives (and no community midwives at all in some areas), it isn't that surprising. Disgraceful and disappointing, yes.

pointythings, ths post was originally about non jobs in the NHS. I do appreciate that nonclinical staff are absolutely essential to the fabric of the NHS, but I have been with the NHS since 1975 and seen the havoc wreaked on it by the introduction of many tiered management systems and all the people that are drafted in to support said systems. Don't assume what people are aware of, you could be quite wrong.

AddersAtDawn,50 years ago would have been 1974! Let's face it reports and stats can be skewed whichever way an administrator wants it to be.

Case in point. Cleaners. When the NHS employed its own cleaners they did a great job and were actually proud to be hospital cleaners.

Then someone in government said they cost too much. So hospital managers sacked them and put cleaning out for tender, and went with the cheapest.

Well they thought they were the cheapest, they were actually paying too little to do the job properly.

Hospitals started to be less clean. Corners were cut.

Fast forward a few years, hospital acquired infection started to rise. That means deaths from hospital acquired infection also rise.

You used to be asked to have a bath or shower before going in to hospital for an op, or you could shower there. Now you have to go to a clinic a week before for observations but also to be given soap and shampoo to use for three days before admission.

So this costs the NHS the time of a HCP to hand out the soap and tell you how to use it, the HCP taking swabs, someone taking those swabs to a lab where it will be analysed to see if you are carrying MRSA.

This costs the public more time off work and most importantly the unnecessary death of a loved one, or more than one.

All to save a few ££ by contracting out cleaners.

Exactly. A lot of organisations are realising this just needs to be integral to every role rather than a highly paid standalone role