To come out of retirement for Coronavirus

[AlexaAmbidextra]

Are you a retired nurse or doctor? I’m a retired nurse and there’s no way on God’s earth I’m coming out of retirement for this. Not because of the personal risk but the fact that I’m just done with working. Should I be more unselfish?

Very recently retired nurse specialist here (55). To answer a previous poster, nurses revalidate every 3 years and remain registered between revalidations if they keep paying the relevant fee - £120 annually.
No way would I go back. The suggestion that we backfill posts to allow current staff to cover more acute areas is totally unsafe, although it's how hospitals deal with winter pressures every year. I was a well paid and well qualified nurse but only in my speciality. I'd be a liability in a ward setting. And if I was used as just a pair of hands, who is in charge if qualified staff have been moved?
I bet this is the plan though, from bitter experience.

Which over 60's have been advised to stay at home?

All of us.

Have we been advised to stay home?

I am retired ,Registration lapsed long ago.No I wouldn’t go back,they would soon be wanting rid of me,I come from the days of bottom rounds,blanket baths and kaolin poultices!!

The government are passing emergency legislation that allows retire hcps to re-register and validate quickly. I expect they will recruit them into roles like 111 and other non critical clinical work.

They will not be indentured.

Well I won’t be unretiring. I worked solidly without a break for forty-eight years so feel as though I’ve done my bit. Besides, I have too many lunches and holidays booked to be able to fit work in. 😂.

Seriously though, they really haven’t thought this through have they? I can’t imagine the NMC being particularly efficient or even co-operative over speedy revalidation and registration. Then you have the issue of insurance. It just won’t work.

YANBU!

Unless you wanted to cover a very low risk, low hour job like a GP nurse because it suited you, why should you? It’s too risky for people of retirement age. Your not selfish at all

Government should scrap nursing degree fees, make it more appealing to study and as a career, not be reactive, more proactive needed. But our capitalist country can’t grasp that.

No. I appreciate everyone who volunteers, but I understand those who don’t!

We more or less lived in the children’s hospital for a year, so we’ve seen how hard nurses work. Your retirement is well deserved!

SkyesBackPack@ What makes you think that a gps nurse is low paid low hours nurse. I was a nurse practitioner in a gps surgery often working 60 hrs a week and a I grade.
Get your facts right.

Totally agree with you OP Youve more than done your bit. And i understand why you feel the way you do.

Ditto others on this thread who had their retirement age moved up.

For example being on the end of a helpline or web based enquiry service.

I do wonder if a lot of families are going to end up having to do some basic home nursing because the hospitals are overwhelmed. In that situation, the experiences of retired nurses could be invaluable to ordinary people if those retired nurses had a way of talking to or answering questions from people online when all the currently employed nurses are unavailable.

Also, could online systems be set up to track symptoms for individuals in households? If we had a way of inputting those for ill people (temperature, symptoms, etc. over the days since illness started), and 111 could pull those up when we rang them, it might save time, especially if the system could also flag up symptom patterns that look worrying even if no one has rung 111. Similarly, any temporarily un-retired HCPs who are happy to volunteer could see those details.

You would expect it to be limited to people who were happy to volunteer and for it to be online with no extra physical risk, though.

It’s not just inconsistent, it’s contradictory. They’re a bunch of fuckwits

Its quite scary. Its almost as if they dont know what to do.

Manning the phones/helplines for 111 springs to mind.
However, 111 is essentially a call centre service and there's a reason why call centres are known as 20th/21st century sweat shops.
They are not for the faint hearted - nor for retirees who want to take life at a normal pace and don't want to be timed going to the toilet😉

YANBU, you've done your bit. However, I can see why the idea has been suggested, as a short term measure during a national health crisis (if this turns into one).

The government is NBU to suggest the idea, but retired HCPs are NBU to decline the request to come out of retirement, they should not be pressured into it.

How else can we find the additional appropriately trained/qualified personnel needed at short notice though? (Without getting Tardis to go back and vote for chaos with Ed Miliband?)

Release final-year medical students to do basic duties (happened with vet students during foot & mouth)?

We can’t import staff - pretty sure every other country needs them!

Are there any recently retired HCP on this thread who could suggest something useful that they could do?

Surely there must be something for those who do want to get involved without too much risk of over exposure to ill people or too much stress?

Perhaps all the MPs should roll their sleeves up and do some caring, they might appreciate carers a bit more.🤪

Redeploy allied healthcare professionals to basic nursing/caring duties - physios, OTs etc?

Recruit unskilled/untrained people - to do what?

If we were looking to recruit a Dads Army of auxiliaries, it seems to me that the people who have been fortunate enough to recover, and presumably have immunity, would be useful in healthcare or body-collection work, or to be retrained in essential services.

No many such people in UK yet , but the number in China exceeds 30 thousand and is growing.

I think there is a woman in Japan(?) that has caught Covid19 twice?

Perhaps unskilled volunteers could be useful then, in some limited capacity.

Seriously, is this the government's plan, for retired people to come back out? FFS, I'm a pretty jaded person but that kind of shit is something I couldn't even have conceived of smoking dope and dropping acid on top 25 years ago. They're fucking done for. They can all run off to their private islands, but someone has to serve them and they have to breathe, too.

Alexa, there is no 'should' about it. You're not selfish, we don't have a national epidemic (40 cases in UK I read earlier), at the moment and probably won't. I'm sure if members of your family/close circle were ill you'd help care for them but for most people it's a question of fluids, anti-pyrexial meds and rest while they live through it.

I wouldn’t do it if I were you. HCP myself but not essential (unless you have toothache!) and if SHTF I will be looking after my DS. Once schools close I’ll be putting down my probe!

obviously they haven’t really thought this through the catchphrase of our current government

Yes, or are they capable of any kind of thought, as they twist themselves in knots trying to pretend that bringing vulnerable retirees out of retirement has nothing to do with their chronic and deliberate underfunding of the NHS over the past 10 years.

You are totally not being unreasonable OP.