Wasted NHS team of nurses

[Anon67592]

I joined a team of band 6 nurses nearly 5 years ago to carry out this large project. The project is pretty much complete and our team now currently stands at 15 band 6 nurses. For some reason everyone is one permanent contracts.

We now are in a strange situation where there is not enough day to day work to keep us all busy, emails and phone calls to the office can easily be handled by 4/5 people and if we have cross site commitments that's enough for another 3/4 people.

The boss tends to stay working from home and has been a very hands off manager who only really steps in when people moan to him about colleagues.

A few people seem to be getting pulled up for not "pulling their weight" although this seems like a crazy accusation since there just isn't enough to do.

The solution would be for some people to leave and not be replaced yet the job is so easy and decent money that no one will leave.

I can imagine most people would think what is the problem but the office is becoming toxic and I can't imagine it's a great use of NHS resources for us all to be sat around doing nothing. To make matters worse we have 2 more coming back from mat leave next year.

What would you do....

Keep quiet and just crack on?
Raise this anonymously to someone in HR and get the team redeployed somewhere useful?
Leave?

There have been a few threads similar to this. There is such crazy inefficiency in the nhs. Maybe whistleblow so you and a number of the team can be redeployed. I hope none of them went on strike!

Speak to your manager and ask what the long term plan is for the team. Redeployment or secondment sounds like it would be a good option.

Unfortunately some people get too comfortable in this kind of role and the grudge being deployed somewhere busier or more pressured. I can understand why you're frustrated but don't blow the whistle quite yet as your colleagues could turn on you and managers won't be happy either, speak with them first.

There may well be an entire piece of management going on to which you are not privy. You said it was a project, so it will have had a budget scoped and allocated, perhaps irrevocably to get it to its completion. That will have included salary costs and a plan to taper up and down as the project builds and reduces in need. There may be good public health and/or (maybe not so good) political reasons why the the project is running as it is. But it is doubtful that the project managers can turn on a sixpence to redeploy staff. In fact the costs of redeployment (with no allocated budgets) might easily exceed the cost of the status quo.

Unless you are the manager, I would leave well alone, save to make clear to your manager that you have capacity and are willing/keen to take on more tasks. You may not be thanked for making waves. Especially so if the project has been badly managed and you are drawing attention to that.

I would be very ‘selfish’ and look at what’s working best for me.

In your case

• do you want to go back to the wards and be sure you’re not loosing skills or do you want to stay in a role that isn’t patient facing. There will be some reasons why you chose to apply for that job in the first place.
• once the project is truly finished, what’s the plan for all of you? Back to ward work with no choice of where you go/which speciality/ hours? Or have they planned some sort of exit for all of you, incl the possibility to carry on non medical tasks.

re people not pulling their weight etc… its just the symptom of people having relaxed in a job that doesn’t require a lot from them. So can’t even be bothered/organised to do the job they still need to do.

And I agree with @Fahbeep .
If you start making waves, you’ll be the one bearing the brunt of whatever grumble/anger will come out of it.

Whistleblowing is an important thing to do. It doesn’t seem to be a case where whistleblowing is needed but rather the consequence of structural issues that are well known by management

This is why I don't agree with giving the NHS more money without it being completely overhauled first to make it more efficient. I suspect there are many more similar stories happening right now in the NHS. It's an inefficient behemoth.