Workfare in the NHS!

[carernotasaint]

eoin-clarke.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/workfare-comes-to-nhs-as-unpaid-workers.html

your link

scottishmummy that took me to a completely different article, I think carernotasaint meant this one

I can't even finish reading the article it's wrong on so many levels .
What is it all coming to?

oh sorry!

Farking hell.

cut & paste your link
tick convert links automatically

I'm current working with staff side to try and preserve the professionalism of our staff and stop the gradual down-grading. This is so going to undermine all that!

Im sorry i screwed up the link . Thanks for correcting it.
It does show that the Tesco/workfare debacle was just the tip of the iceberg.

Thank you for this, Carer.

So this is a pilot study in which unemployed people are being given placements in hospitals, where they work for no pay for a set period of time. Presumably the stated aim is to give them a boost, help them acquire some skills or even a job, and save money for the NHS.

What's not to like?

As NHS hospitals are forced to make cuts, many NHS employees are either out of work or overworked. Using unpaid labour like this will lead to the downgrading of jobs and qualifications - IIRC, the same argument was used against assistant teachers, who are paid, but less than fully qualified ones.

At the moment the unpaid workers are giving patients food and drink and transporting medicines, but in particularly hard-pressed, understaffed wards you can imagine that they will find themselves doing things that only qualified staff should do.

And do they run a police check on these unpaid workers?

issues are
supervision of the trainees
adequate support
clear boundaries about tasks and understanding of abilities
trainees not used as cheap unsupervised labour

how are the professionas and unions responding to this initiative

Oh god. Thank you for this thread, carer.

Couldn't follow your link, Scottishmummy.

Thing is when a ward is rushed off its feet you just know that a workfare "trainee" is going to end up dispensing meds directly to a patient. It will happen. There is a thread on this in AIBU as well.

Thanks serialkipper but i cant take the credit. NicolasTeacozy started the original thread in AIBU. But i thought it was important enough to put on this board too and on the Politics board.

"So this is a pilot study in which unemployed people are being given placements in hospitals, where they work for no pay for a set period of time. Presumably the stated aim is to give them a boost, help them acquire some skills or even a job, and save money for the NHS.

What's not to like?"

What's not to like, IMO, is that as long as employers can get workers for free, they have no incentive to recruit actual paid employees to do these jobs. This harms the job market - there are simply fewer paid jobs out there because the employers have lovely free Workfare workers instead. This in turn drives wages down.

That's just the market impact, leaving aside the safety aspects raised above.

So where will that leave people like me Ex, who has a PAID job making the food for the patients AND catering for functions despite 'only' being a Catering Assisstant? He has just discovered that he is being underpaid by 2 pay bands too!

They will be taking away paid jobs from people by doing this.

Cardy... I fear that the lower bands will be the ones who can be replaced by free labour, yes

Thing is, my ex is being PAID band 1, but has even been told by his manager that he is doing the work of a Band 3, as he is often running the kitchen single-handed when it's the Head Chef's day off, and he's catering for all the functions in the hospital too.

(the pay thing is in the process of being sorted so he will then be on band 3)

But still, he had to support a family on that band 1 job when I was still with him - as do most of the other catering assistants. They start putting in Workfarers, then they are stopping people from earning a living to support their families.

Cardy... I am a trained NHS job evaluator (i sit on the panels as staff side rep). I would tell your OH to contact HR and ask about being rebanded. If the job matching panel look at his case and he is up-banded, it should be backdated.

Mind you, it is not all bad ... the article mentioned that lots of the workfare people enjoyed the work, which hopefully meant they were at least friendly and caring towards patients. Unfortunately, these two attributes are sometimes hard to find in nurses/healthcare assistants.

As long as they enjoyed being exploited and unemployed (while working) then its ok not to pay them, right dikker?

I think that having people gaining work experience does not necessarily mean that you are exploiting them. In my time I used to have plenty of trainees, I did not exploit them. TBH my job was easier without them, they created a lot more work/management, but it was also fun to teach people who were really keen to learn.

If out of these workfare people some have decided that they actually would like to pursue work in the NHS as a result of workfare, then that is very positive, for them, the patients and the NHS.