If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
NHS Losing Staff
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Its good to see that Labour have really improved the NHS, its motivated the staff so much, particularly nurses, that according to the Royal College of Nursing there was a net outflow from the NHS of 15,000 nurses over the last twelve months. Reasons given included growing unhappiness over stress, long hours, overwork, and unsocialable shift patterns. I would guess that Labour's incessant fixation with targets over patient care has also probably frustrated the nurses to such a degree they just can't stand it anymore.
If the current trend continues the net outflow of nurses could grow to 25,000 a year by 2015.
All so very different to Labour spin.
If the current trend continues the net outflow of nurses could grow to 25,000 a year by 2015.
All so very different to Labour spin.
0
Comments
More nurses working than in the Tory days though.
1) Why are so many British nurses leaving the NHS?
2) Why are we importing so many foreign nurses from countries that can ill-afford to lose them?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1469330,00.html
I'll be interested in hearing the views from Kent before I start ranting too much.
(or even the Kentish view )
todays youngsters are less inclined to change the nappies of old men ...thats the society we live in ...how can governments be blamed?
You have a source for that?
Just an opinion, or do you have anything to support that claim?
Also, as the NHS appears to be back on your agenda, any chance of you responding to the other thread which you seem to have forgotten - now that I have shown your website to be bollocks...?
Recruitment to the US and elsewhere has been happening for years, partly because the rest of the world knows how well we train our nurses. I don’t think it will be any more of a problems that it has been for decades. Especially as the wage gap has reduced since more investment has been pumped into the NHS.
The real concern I have is the sub-specialisation and increasing demands we have placed on our nursing staff. That doesn’t cause of reduction in absolute numbers but it does reduce the amount of capacity they have.
Sub-specialiation means that there are fewer nurses available to do the “general” work we have always associated with nurses. Be that ward or clinic work. Added to that we ask more and more nurses to carry out more and more work which was once the remit of doctors.
Therefore the general tasks are passed onto HCAs. Now they are starting to resemble the nurses of old, but without the same level of training. Of course, this also means that the tasks which they carried out just aren’t being done. In many cases these are the “basic” things which people complain about. Feeding patients who cannot feed themselves, providing tea, simple cleaning…
taken from the Guardian link
I know recruitment for the U.S has been steady for a while but do you not think this new drive will affect this country?
Shame that nursing doesn't have the same image of here. I guess that constant negative publicity in the national press just makes it look an unattractive option... especially when compared to "media"...
I completely agree with this. There seems to be a certain amount of snobbery among some nurses about what is with is with in the nurses remit. I have came across other students who feel that giving basic care to a patient is purely the HCA's job while the nurse should be doing the jobs which require training. I think what is important to remember is that with out the basics, the more advanced procedures are useless.
I think though that a lot of the time there just aren't enough nurses. I've been on wards where there is 2 nurses to 24 patients. In these conditions alot of the basic tasks have to passed to HCA's who may not no the rational behind basic tasks. On the other hand there are some brilliant HCA's who keep wards going.
I think that what we've got to be careful of happening is the medicalisation nurses, in which they just become lesser versions of doctors, losing the very thing that makes them nurses.
I know that is a bit of a muddle, but I'm sure I have a point to make some where.
What a morally repugnant policy it is.
True, but its not new is it? Every political party when in power says how good the NHS is under them and when they're not in power they produce story after story about how bad it is.
I suspect its more there's just be a sea change in attitudes. It used to be that the idea of 'Public Service' was supported by all sections of the community - whatever there political views. Not sure that's so true anymore. We have some people on the right wing thinking that the only way to do things is through private companies and some on the left thinking that if you vote Tory your some sort of traitor to the idea of public service.
And in the middle the majority of people no longer give any profession the automatic respect it used to get as everyone now thinks they are an expert
And lo' once again you show you're deep lack of understanding of an issue.
Do you know how many of these nurses return home, with better training and greater experience than when they left? Do you have any idea of how much moeny transfers from the UK to these nations, helping their economy? For example.
I don't think that it is a great system, and I would much rather that we grew our own nurses at the level which we need. Reality says differently...
No, it hasn't always been the case. Until the late 70s the NHS was not as much of a political football that it is now. The mass media approach wasn't as great and neither was the desire to constantly undermine - under the guise of "public interest"...
I don't disagree with this though. Sometime I get the feeling that I am supposed to feel "dirty" because I work in the Public Sector, even though I know I do a valuable job.
Precisely, how often have you heard NHS managers denegrated? How often do you hear complaints about "red tape"? As if all I do all day is try to find ways to make life harder for clinicians...
*clears throat*
When I qualify I shall be 20. But I agree, I am one of the youngest on my course, over half are over 30. It is difficult to recruit students because of the long hours and lomg academic year with only a bursary to live on.. It used to be that students were salaried - the Tories saw an end to that [had to get that dig in.......]
There are many reasons as to why qualified nurses are leaving. Pay, pensions, hours, red-tape, bureaucracy etc etc. NHS trained nurses are renowned world-wide and can snap up jobs like no-ones business.
Nurses are not seen as a profession [some call it a semi-profession] due to the lack of autonomy nurses have at the moment [although this is changing - very slowly I might add].
My personal ways to improve recruitment and retention:
1. Students get back to salaried posts, yet retaining their supernumery status.
2. Massive advertising campaign showing that nursing is not just about cleaning shit [they did it with teaching.]
3. Make the courses less rigid with the ability to study part-time or indeed less hours.
4. Give students the support they need, both in university and out on placement.
5. On qualification nurses should have a structured and thorough pre-ceptor year where their progress is monitored.
6. Nurses should be invloved in decisions more, with regards to treatment and also the ability to implement some of these regimens.
7. The NHS should allow part-time working as standard.
8. The NHS should ensure that nurse: patient ratios remain as low as possible - this will ensure that a nurse has enough time to deal with patients as individuals.
9. Less paperwork - although paperwork is necessary and legally required, the sheer volume of it leaves nurses pen-pushing while clinical work is left to the unqualified staff.
10. Pay nurses a decent wage - we dont ask for much.. Just what we deserve.
11. Retain the current pension arrangements.
12. Give staff the support that they need to ensure that any problems are sorted out a.s.a.p.
I will probably think of more.......:)
I feel for you, as the proverbial man in Whitehall I'm sure the papers think we make targets for the fun of it and deliberately put in place 'red tape' just to give people jobs, rather than as way to improve performance. And we do all that whilst working three hours a day of which two hours is our lunch break
Ah well, I still believe in the public service ethos
I do remember that even in the late 80s a perception within the construction trade that any experience working within local authorities would count against you.
We can all see what you do all day
we're fucking paying for these posts!!!!!!!!!!!
dick will have a friggin thromby.
Yep, capitalism is nasty system isn't it?
You are paying for that too...
Just like you paid me for spending the past seven days (24 hours per day) on-call...
But how much truth was in that story?
Let the Master/Prole relationship long continue.
But you keep complaining about its effects.