80 year old nurses.

[IveGotAnIdea]

I've recently taken early retirement from the NHS after 37 years because I realised that I had given it my all and was burned out and also because I thought it would give a younger person a chance to progress.
Over the years, I have worked with many nurses and AHPs who were in their late 60s and 70s, who had retired and returned to senior roles and quite frankly did bugger all, they would openly joke that they were there for the social side! Turning up with freshly baked goods each day and then wanting to chat about their many exotic holidays or grandchildren for an hour. They invariably proved to be a huge distraction while Rome burned all around. Their sick records were also so much worse than younger staff.
There are currently hundreds of young nurses struggling to get their first job or working as carers while desperately applying for every job going, others leaving to go abroad because of the lack of progression opportunities.
Am I being unreasonable to think that the NHS needs to stop encouraging clinical staff to stay way past their best before dates and maybe even introduce a mandatory cut off age.
If they miss the hospital environment there's always volunteering.

Apart from the blatant ageism here, it's just not true that people leaving a role will enable a new employee to enter that space. That is definitely not how a hiring freeze works!
Be careful what you wish for, because if those more mature colleagues all decided to leave at once I can guarantee you the first people to take up the slack would be existing employees rather than looking for new ones. ie yourself.

You dont sound very aware of how vacancies and hiring are currently restricted across the entire public sector.
Also you sound very focused on generational differences rather than human commonality. I hope this is not reflected in your approach to caring for older patients too!
"hurry up and die please, there's loads of younger ones waiting for a bed you know".

I guess they sent the old ones to me because I was a very compliant anorexic with a broken hip. It was an ortho trauma ward I was sectioned to.

So I couldn't run away and only weighed about 34kg. Once they realised I was there I think the bank RMNs all wanted their shifts with me. It was just watching me eat and sleep, do obs and making convo! Hopefully a good easy patient! 😆

I could be retired now but my husband running off scuppered that.

I work with someone in their mid 70’s. She is just not up to it. For her own sake she needs to retire. She doesn’t do long shifts any more. It’s sad, as she things she wants to do. But her husband won’t retire, so she’s lonely.

The late Queen wasn’t slogging her guts out on a hospital ward. She had the best of everything. She didn’t have to worry about making ends meet on a state pension , she wasn’t scared to put the heating on. Very different.

I’ll be more than happy to retire when I’m ready. That could be early, or later than 67. My only considerations, though, are completely based on my own needs. I’d never retire purely to step aside for someone younger. I didn’t expect that when I was younger and making a success of my career. I’ll retire whenever I like.

If she's not up to the job, then management should deal with it.

They do in the fire service and military.

Ageism and jealousy? Blimey.

People say all sorts of shit at work. It may not be true.
Accept tasty baked treats with grace and get on with your life.

So did people report this skiving and shirking?

We have nurses at the trust I work for well into their 70s. I’m only 45 can wait tot get out there!

I've reported bad practice many times over my career, but report the beloved Pam, Mary or Sherrie? you've got to be kidding, they are untouchable institutions.

What shocking malpractice. Was there no-one higher to complain to? I'm astonished that any nurse would behave like that, in such a demanding job, others having to work harder to compensate.

Then that’s an issue with the manager and you are wrong to focus on staff. I have worked with a lot of useless/lazy younger workers who are drinking buddies of managers and who get away with murder. It’s not linked to age.

When I was a nurse , the sister on our ward had a friend who was a bank HCA who she had known for many years . This HCA was 78 , frankly she was useless , she didn’t take shifts on any other wards because she basically was only capable of handing out dinners / feeding people . All it meant was that all the other staff on shift were having to do her share of the patient washing / toileting etc . This obviously didn’t affect the sister as she barely did any of that stuff anyway . So for at least 2 day shifts per week the ward was effectively one person short just so this woman could top up her pension .

Band 7s are predominantly admin workers The amount of paperwork /meetings, audits, staff supervisions, rota compilation etc they have to do is just crazy hence being predominantly office based. I worked until age 69 as a band 6 bank nurse. My experience was there were hcas and registered nurses who were "serial sickies" often citing mental health as the reason . Difficult for management to deal with as they are terrified of being accused of discrimination. Unfortunately the nhs sick pay policy lends itself to abuse 😟

I worked with a nurse manager the last 5 yrs of her career with her retiring at 73. She didnt want to but she was definitely gently pushed to retire mainly because she thought she could come back PRN but lacked a bachelors degree.

she was extremely resistant to change and would talk openly about doing things “like this always or for 10 yrs we have done xxx) You don’t want a nurse ignoring best practice standards

she made many mistakes in the last three years

she had 14 weeks of sick time due to illness surgery spouse surgery

she jeopardized her retirement by removing from the employer plan and giving to a rogue investor. She could not afford to retire

she was threatened by staff who were more competent and more attentive to patient care

she only cared about meeting budget targets not the patients. I think she thought if she kept the department under budget no one would require her retirement

Not sure if this is age related but medicine does require you to be present be agile and be able to think quickly clearly and carefully.

@BorgQueen re obese nurses, I've noticed that too and how slowly they trundle about. If they were rushing about as much as many claim to do that excess weight would quickly drop off. Lack of breaks and access to good food is no excuse, many jobs involve that.

Outside of nursing I've noticed quite high levels of unfitness amongst younger colleagues. A colleague (very obese) 20 years younger than me recently asked me if I had ADHD as I was always moving around. I'm 64 and I don't have ADHD I just make sure the job is done..

As a former nurse there’s no way I could have done these long shifts in my fifties and sixties, let alone seventies. It’s sadly true that many nurses are morbidly obese. In my time many used to go for cigarette breaks leaving colleagues to do the work.

Same. I’ve got lazy older, younger and similar age colleagues. Likewise, plenty of hard-working ones, too @IveGotAnIdea and as for me, well, I’m old enough to retire and I work my arse off. Hate slackers!

Shockingly easily. And yes, patients (or their carers) do complain, yet still nothing is done. Some patients do die.

It beats me how anyone can do these hard physical jobs into an old age. I started looking for something else because i got to 50 and started havinv trouble with my feet and shoulder. Most healthcare staff have bad backs. Schools are simply ageist, you do see more older women in the NHS but not really past retirement age.

Whereabouts in the country was this, op? Its not something ive seen.

Yep and there's no point reporting it because I've never yet seen MN take down an ageist post (and I've been here forever).

I don't recognise what you're talking about and have three decades of service.

The recruitment of newly qualified staff as absolutely nothing to do with older staff being in post linger. Trusts do not want to recruit newly qualified staff and do not want to provide mentoring and preceptorship or finding fir upskilling. Older members of staff leaving would just lose that skill and experience- it would not be easily or quickly replaced.

I have worked with lazy, disingenuous and toxic nurses and they were all younger than me!