To think that one of the NHS’s biggest problems is that it’s almost impossible to sack anyone?

[SnugShaker]

I know the NHS is under huge pressure and that many staff work incredibly hard. But from what I’ve seen and heard, one major issue is that it’s extremely difficult to dismiss underperforming employees. Unlike in the private sector, where people who don’t pull their weight are usually let go, the NHS seems to have layers of bureaucracy that protect staff, even when they’re not competent.

I’ve heard of people who do the bare minimum (or less) staying in their jobs for years, making life harder for colleagues who have to pick up the slack. Surely this impacts patient care and efficiency? AIBU to think that making it easier to remove underperforming staff would improve things? Or is there a good reason for the system being the way it is?

Agree and its exactly the same in Local Authority too.

This is just an unfounded attack on NHS staff.

Yep, same in Local Authority and Civil Service. Based on personal experience, NHS also has a massive bullying culture which makes retaining decent staff nigh-on impossible

It's not just the NHS, it's all public sector employers.

You can be as lazy and incompetent as you like, your job is safe.

God help you if you blow the whistle on corruption or bad practice though, or refer to some hairy-arsed bloke in a dress as "he" or "him". They'll move heaven and earth to get rid of you then.

And as for private sector being so bloody fantastic, do you want your GP on a zero hours contract with no job security, no sick pay like a retail worker? Do you think that'll help stop doctors moving to other countries?

A bigger issue is retention and staff shortages.

Couldn't agree more! Worked NHS 20 years ago and was just as bad

The public sector (usually) looks after good staff and boots out the rubbish, because it makes good business sense to do so.

The public sector can afford to retain poor performers, because it's "only" taxpayers money they are wasting.

The private sector is answerable to shareholders.

I never said NHS staff should have no protections, just that in some cases, persistent underperformance seems hard to address and that has consequences for colleagues and patients. Job security and fair treatment are important but so is accountability. I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive.

My DD is a supervisor within a hospital sector, another DD works in catering in a different hospital. There's two things, one is the managers and how they have to control their budgets. Another is that there isn't anyone to replace the staff, if they were fired. On every thread about women needing maintenance, universal credit top ups etc, they are told to get better paying jobs. So who is going to do the support staff jobs in the NHS?

It's the same in higher education too.

It is but they do underhand things like move goal posts without telling, you put you under so much pressure that in the end you can't take it anymore and resign.

Same in education. Several parents at my child’s old school complained about a particular teacher, the HT explained that she couldn’t be sacked but had to put her through so many qualifications so she’d move on. Said teacher is now HT of two small schools that are threatening to close because so many children have been removed!

Public sector HR worker here

Had someone join a team, completely incompetent from day 1 ( due to the incompetence of the hiring manager) after 3 months rather than face the music at their probationary review they put in a discrimination claim ( unfounded, I know as I investigated it) went off sick got full sick pay for 3 months then when sick pay ran out, managed to agree to wfh 5 days a week due to the 'trauma' of having to potentially see their manager ( who'd done nothing wrong) in the office, no one dared touch them with a barge pole due to the fear of another discrimination claim, so they got away woth doing practically nothing whilst getting a full salary until they found another job 6 months later.

12 months pay for 3 months (crap) work what a fucking swindle!

I get that understaffing and budget pressures make things incredibly hard for managers. What I’m getting at is that while the root issues are complex, it still seems like persistent underperformance goes unchecked and that affects everyone else doing their job well. I’m not saying sack everyone, just that there should be better systems to support accountability and workforce sustainability.

Do you actually work in the public sector OP or is this just what you have heard?

I have worked in both and found it to be the same. In fact I've known people to have performance related measures/get pushed out more in the public sector. Anything unprofessional gets very swiftly dealt with.

The private sector employers I worked for were much worse for letting the lazy fuckers do the square root of nothing and be unprofessional in their conduct and usually rewarded them for it.

I agree!! I currently work in the NHS!

Catering in hospitals is largely outsourced to private sector companies are you sure they are employed by the nhs?

This is spot on!

I resigned in temper but I would have been sacked, whilst suspended for reporting all sorts of incompetences. The incompetent/bullying staff - they still keep moving higher.

Have worked across the public sector over the years. You absolutely can get rid of under performers in local government and civil service. Yes, it takes time but I would rather we had a fair, rigorous process. The NHS is defo harder though, very rare in my experience to be able to dismiss people. Just my experience.

I’ve worked in the public sector and have close friends in both clinical and non-clinical NHS roles, so I’m not coming at this with zero context. I don’t doubt your experience at all but as with many things, different departments and trusts vary. My point wasn’t that everyone coasts or that the private sector is flawless - just that in some areas of the NHS, performance issues seem incredibly difficult to address systematically. That has a knock-on effect on team morale, workloads, and ultimately, patients.

Can I humbly disagree. We have about 15 gps at our health centre, not one does a 5 day week. Yes there are some issues with recruitment but there are issues with removing poor staff from all civil service government jobs.

There is a culture of poor service and lack of accountability, which is not helped by poor systems and it programmes.

I have had 3 years of issues with HMRC which my accountant has tried time and time again to address. It's only with the involvement of our MP has anything moved forward and we've actually been told what the issue is

It's a lazy stereotype. Public Sector abscence and performance procedures are fairly robust nowadays.

I was sacked by the NHS, people are sacked all the time.

Fwiw my private sector workplace has a PIP process which you enter after ~6 months of underperformance and get 3-6 months to turn it around with very clear written goals of what's needed. None of us think it's unfair or not rigorous, it's all very well documented with reviews etc and it sounds a million times more preferable than the "stuck for years with underperforming colleagues" world!

This makes me biased to think it's entirely possible to have a fair/rigorous process and still ensure a high standard of work - BUT possibly a key difference is the people who join my workplace are probably much more likely to not swing the lead... so you can design an efficient process that works for people who take it seriously and not like the 3mo work for 12mo pay example...

AIBU to think that making it easier to remove underperforming staff would improve things?

That presupposes there's a big pool of better performing and equally qualified people out there to hire to replace the perceived under-performers. NewsFlash: those replacements don't exist.

Unless you're in Zambia. Apparently there are a lot of qualified and very under employed health professionals in a lot of poor countries. So NHS could hire those underemployed people, right? Coz immigration is so praised & welcomed in UK...

Given some of the things I've noticed you posting on here over time, I'd say it's not a great example that their processes are rigorous at all. Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.