views re NHS staffing...

There Is no doubt that the NHS is on its knees through decades of under funding and successive Govts and Executives taking the goodwill and dedication of staff nurses doctors and ancillary staff for granted. The last 10 years have accelerated that process.
It is also clear substantial investment is required in infrastructure but mainly in increasing staffing levels to meet the demands of an increasing and ageing population.
Obviously attracting new staff requires investment in training and making the profession financially rewarding but that does introduce a problem.
I recently attended a clinic as having some stitches removed coincided with our visit to the UK. The nurse was fantastic, friendly patient and expert in dealing with a couple of very problematic stitches. We ended up talking about the situation and strikes, (which in the case of the NHS I 100% support). I mentioned that we know 3 people,- 2 hospital doctors and a nurse - who quit the NHS due to the stress and pressures at work and went abroad and found the work/life balance far better and for more money.
The attending nurse who has been in the profession for many years raised an interesting point. Whilst it is important that the remuneration is high enough to attract people into the NHS she argued that everyone she knew did not come into the NHS for the money. They viewed it as a vocation. She genuinely believed that there is the danger that if there is too high a levels of pay it attracts the people who come into the profession for the wrong reasons i.e. the money. Also, some, after training and probationary periods may leave to either go abroad or higher paid agency work.
I asked if she was being too cynical and pessimistic but she said she was already seeing it and the attitudes of many of the more recent influx of staff was less about the vocational aspects and more about the potential financial rewards. Most of those striking, she said, were striking for more money to increase staffing levels but there were some who saw that as secondary to being paid more themselves. According to her, it is a view shared by many of her experienced long time colleagues that it is becoming a job that no one brought up in the UK wants to do.
How do you ensure people are suitably rewarded and provide a good work life balance and at the same time attract only those who regard nursing etc as a rewarding vocation rather than a means to make money?
My opinion, based on my experiences as a patient over the years, is that there are very, very few who fall into the latter category.
There are a number of BBSers who are current or former NHS professionals so would like to hear their views on this. How do you square the circle?

 

Great post. I've witnessed it myself on the ward my Dad was on. There were nurses that couldn't do enough for people and there were ones that just did obs and the bare minimum.

I didn't start at the NHS because of the money. I was only part time. It was that my life was going nowhere at the time and it offered me a career rather than a job. I haven't progressed through the ranks like I had aspirations of at the start. However, I still have that dedication to the patients.

I've never been money orientated anyway though and am mere admin. So I'm probably the wrong person to ask. @TitusMagee actually deals with patients in a medical capacity so he's probably your man.

 

The wages are far, far short of where they start attracting people who just do it for the money. I don't think I have any issue with jobs attracting people because of the money - surgeons etc are well paid and they're the ones cutting you open so I don't see why it's suddenly dangerous to pay nurses more.

 

Plus I'd rather be treated by a mercenary than die in a hospital corridor while salt of the earth nurses try and treat 578 patients each.

 

If you make the job attractive you will attract people, that may well include money in the equation.
At the moment anyone approaching making a career/vocational decision have no incentive as all you hear about the NHS is negative from abuse, pay, working conditions, support etc.
Why would anyone consider a path down that route.

edit: before anyone jumps in obviously we hear positive stuff about the actual staff there.

 

We're a first world country with the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world. Staffing the NHS adequately should not be a problem. Unfortunately due to our god awful politicians it is.

 

Just pay them , a lot , pay student nurses , problem of recruitment solved . There are people in every profession who treat their jobs as just a pay packet , those that would do it for minimum wage and then there are those who are dedicated but know their worth .

 

I don't disagree with that. The NHS and health/social care has always tended to attract people like SD, who are not money orientated. And you are right, better pay if it means sufficient staff to make the job bearable is no brainer. However it is unlikely the NHS will ever be able to offer the rates that private/overseas/ agency organisations do so retention levels could end up being poor unless training goes hand in hand with some sort of contractual obligation where a minimum period of service is required after training and probationary period is over, or fees have would to be repaid, but I am not sure how that would sit with employment law.

 

But I don't regard nurses or doctors or anyone on the front line of healthcare as "just doing a job". It takes a special kind of person to do that sort of work day in day out regardless of how well (or not) they are paid. Mixing those who care and those who are just in it for the money does show itself and can cause resentment in many workplaces. In the Health environment which are high pressure, where most staff are not money driven the difference becomes transparent and could lead to friction, resentment and lower morale.

 

It may attract some who are only attracted by the money but as long as they do the work to a standard it doesn’t matter, also if the package was attractive the employer might have choice of staff as opposed to what they can get.

 

I think this is already quite common in many professions

 

There is a study (and I'm afraid I can't find it atm) that looked at pay incentives - they found that for manual workers pay incentives worked (if they work harder or longer or produced more then then they earned more) but for 'professionals' it did not work. What they found was that most professions what people wanted was to be paid well but to be incentivised by the the work being meaningful (helping society, people) or by being given flexibility or being given given novel or new areas of work or study. So for computer programmers it was found that they worked harder if a bonus might be Friday afternoon to work on something completely new and bonkers.

I think the same goes for the medical profession, they want to be paid well enough to haver a good life but are motivated by the idea they are doing good.

 

As Brexit hasn’t been mentioned already I may as well add it now.

The NHS was already struggling pre brexit with staffing. Years of Austerity basically cutting pay for our most important workers, where it’s literally life or death. We never recovered from Osbourne cutting nurse bursaries, which basically cut the pipeline of new nurses hitting the wards (this will take years to recover). With an already catastrophic lack of nurses, we switched off another huge pipeline of qualified nurses because of brexit.

This country is FUBAR’d and the NHS is almost irreparable

 

This argument does not apply when the levels of pay require health professionals to use food banks.

 

You've fallen into the trap which has been under preparation for the last 13 years. It's not "politicians" it's the Tory party. We have many decent politicians in this country, unfortunately, due to our outdated voting system, none of them have been in a position to do anything about it for the last 13 years. And particularly since 2019 when Boris Johnson got rid of the last few decent ones in the Tory party.

 

Usually in the pub, I speak from experience....

 

Sorry Brush, I haven't fallen into that trap at all. The thrust of my point was that it was the current bunch who are largely to blame. I would fully expect any new Labour government to get their arses into gear and start fixing the problem properly. There needs to be questions asked if they don't.

 

Glad to hear it mate.
There's a graph of NHS waiting times since the Major government of the early to mid 90s; under the Tories, they go consistently up and under Blair's Labour they go consistently down. And that was only an "imitation" Labour government.

 

I don't know why Labour won't make this explicit mate. I think there are many, many Brexit voters who would not be averse to hearing that immigration is urgently required in both health and adult social care for front line patient facing staff. It's not even an EU specific or a rejoin specific thing.

 

I left the NHS not for financial reasons but for a better work life balance and less stress. Nurses deserve pay in line with inflation as well as safe staffing levels, it isn't a case of either/or.

I won't go back to the NHS, I love the NHS and grateful for the opportunity it gave me but I won't return. I am happier where I am now.