NHS woes

[gentlemum]

Does anyone else work for the nhs and just so fed up of it? The bureaucracy, endless meetings, cover ups of things that have gone wrong. It's just getting awful to work for.

Can we add management who manage you but sit in a different office, 2 floors below in the opposite end of the hospital who feel they have some right over your team. They don't know us and have no clue about what we do but love to come and lord the power over when it comes to annual leave and flexible working.

Absolutely! And put ridiculous pressure and targets on you with no actual understanding of what it is like to be in a patient facing role as they're so detached from it all as they sit with their coffee from the comfort of an office.

Which is why the NHS needs a complete shake up.

It's been a sacred institution and no one dares to question it.

I'm reminded of the story, a few years back, regarding stationery.
Many hospital trusts used a particular stationery supplier.
The supplier charged over the odds for ball point pens, diaries, notebooks, folders etc...

The difference in price was almost extortionate yet the practice was deemed ok to carry on with, despite the fact that other suppliers could supply for a fraction of the cost.

Yet taxpayers are charged this.

Think of PPE.
Michelle Mone.

There's a frightening amount of waste.

The endless, convoluted systems and processes to do the simplest things.

The amount of near retirement jobsworths.

The fact EVERYTHING has to have a fucking acronym.

the NHS is in constant shake up. NHS normal is nothing stays the same.

Sounds like academy schools!

I blame Tories!

Yes 100's of managers never seen half of them no idea what they all do.
Then get to watch them award themselves with well done certificates on Facebook or their silly newsletters.
Argh we're all working down here on the front line and dont have time to think up stupid ways to pat ourselves on the back.
All overpaid and either never worked on the front line or haven't done for many decades and have no idea what is going on.

Makes my blood boil

Second this. Worked in the NHS since 1997 and never been so demoralised.

Also NHS. Burnt out post Covid and exhausted. Not enough hours in the day to do all the never ending admin, so do it in evenings or weekends. Did a favour and covered a meeting on my day off once and now constantly having to defend myself to management as to why I can’t do it every week. At least 3 hours unpaid overtime every week. Abuse from patients… the list goes on. I love my actual job and team but honestly am underpaid and treated like crap by higher management.

I think the NHS is probably the worst for this but there's a lot of it in other organisations too. Partly it's the complaints culture though. Everyone complains, does a FOI request or a DSAR and "takes it on Twitter" etc etc . There are questions from MPs and big journalistic "investigations" - So big organisations have to cover their backs, They have to prove they are meeting targets, evidence everything, have policies in place in case they get crucified for something or other. So it becomes about proving you've done it right not actually doing it right.
If I broke the rules and just for example, gave something they needed - - sooner or later it would come back to bite me.
But yes OP I agree 100%

Yep, non clinical but also non manager here, 15 years plus experience in different Trusts, I have never seen it this bad. Management are so bloated and overgraded, so self congratulatory and not enough support staff. Lots of backroom jobs should be regionalised including mine (education related) and there need to be some serious realignments of expectations of what is actually necessary with a workforce and resources cut to the bone. And yet HR continue to prance about telling us how important the staff survey and awards ceremony are while several members of the board seem to spend most of their lives in search of a selfie background for their social media.

My own boss argued with me about whether we need to consider if everything we do serves patient care or not. (Hint, boss, the answer is yes, otherwise why the heck are we doing it.) And yes, I recognize the scenario of being sent off to meetings because boss is too busy with one of the myriad empty noise committees HR have concocted in an effort to pretend they're busy and important, while ignoring serious matters like bullying, racism, casual misogyny, mysterious vacancies materialising for mates and gobsmacking lack of financial transparency/traceability. All against a backdrop of the callousness and contempt of the worst and downright nastiest government I can remember.

I live with a nurse who worked with the elderly and vulnerable during COVID and who is now so burned out they are almost certainly going to leave the profession before Christmas.

I have been humbled beyond words at all that clinical staff do, and infuriated beyond words at the tinpot politician posturing of so many of the so called managers, aping Westminster behaviour. Some of us are now too old to emigrate but those of you who aren't? Think seriously about it.

I agree with overgraded management. I am working at a much higher level than I am paid but being blocked trying to go through the job matching process. All the while the person blocking me is rising through the ranks getting pay rises and lots of training opportunities.

It's the news letters and ceo podcasts for me, more than twice a week. Who is reading these things?

Yes yes yes! Management have zero clue what we have to deal with on a daily or nightly basis and they expect us to be able to cover shifts at short notice and blah blah about patient safety when it’s literally being compromised every day by the shitty equipment and working conditions.
Ive never known it so bad and were haemorrhaging staff. No pun intended.

Hahaha maybe we’re in the same trust! I’m pleased they have time to do all that because I can barely glance at my emails during a shift!

I've just been offered a job in the NHS but I'm not sure whether to accept. This thread is v helpful!

Too many middle and even senior managers. Too many banal jobs that mean nothing for mates as said by pp. they then proceed to try and keep themselves in those jobs by making up very complicated problems that require endless ‘projects’.

Basically inventing problems out of the fact that we just need more support staff for our clinicians and more clinical staff. It’s a joke.

And yes totally sick to death of the sychophantic self congratulating managers and their deputy’s. Everything is about them whilst the rest of us plebby consultants and clinicians (heard us described as some awful things in management meetings) are the bane of their life. The patients are the bane of their life. In fact while I’m here they disgust me, the hierarchy of a hospital should be:

Patients
Clinicians
Support staff
Managers

Managers have forgotten they are there to facilitate clinicians treating patients not to be congratulated every 5 minutes like little kids. It’s embarrassing.

I worked for the NHS for 3 months in 2008 and that was enough for me. You have my sympathy.

Checking in for a moan. I’ve just changed jobs and not found a good grove yet, so my woes are a bit circumstantial but can appreciate what you’re all saying. Most of it resonates.