Migrant workers needed to avoid NHS crisis.

[JFKvsNixon]

I think if the country went back to the old system of 'on the job' training for nurses, and the two tier SRN and SEN we could get them into service a lot quicker than via a degree path. Opines?

 

The practical training is still done on the job, but it has to be acknowledged that job has changed from what it used to be, nurses have now have picked up many of the responsibilities that used to be done by the junior doctors.

 

Also as we've gained more knowledge on how to improve our healthcare, this has had a knock on effect of making that healthcare more complicated. When you couple this with ever more emphasise of accountability it does lead you to the conclusion that degree only training is the only way to go.

[chalga]

The Coalition haven't cut funding, they've slowed down it's increase.

 

Ok,sorry,i am just taking these words at their face value,instead of re arranging the meaning.

 

 

 

Spending cuts have created a shortage of 20,000 NHS nurses, the Government has been warned, as fears grow that hospital wards may struggle to cope as winter approaches.

[angos]

Ok,sorry,i am just taking these words at their face value,instead of re arranging the meaning.

 

 

 

Spending cuts have created a shortage of 20,000 NHS nurses, the Government has been warned, as fears grow that hospital wards may struggle to cope as winter approaches.

 

From that same article.

 

While official figures say that just 3,859 full-time nurse, midwife and health visitor posts have been lost since the Coalition came to power in May 2010. The RCN said that thousands more nursing vacancies have been created because hospitals have not been replacing staff that have retired or moved on due to reduced budgets.

 

So if nurses have been made redundant, why do we need migrant nurses?

And in the past three years who as employed the British trainee nurses?

[Mecky]

The RCN said that thousands more nursing vacancies have been created because hospitals have not been replacing staff that have retired or moved on due to reduced budgets.

 

Eh, why not sack everyone on the UK, then there will be millions of vacancies? It's nearly as bad as that Tory MP who said the unemployed should move to areas where the work is (London). Like that would solve the UK's unemployment figures. What a clown.

[SevenRivers]

But it would still take 2 or three years to train a nurse as it does now (3 years for BSc and 2 years for post grad diploma).

Have to agree that 'on the job training' is the way to go.

 

Why is on the job training better?

[GLASGOWOODS]

Why is on the job training better?

 

Do you think learning to drive any mode of transport would be more effective through theory and simulation, as opposed to getting behind the wheel?

[Daven]

Why is on the job training better?

 

The current training is very much University based with less time than in the past for 'hands on' nursing out on the wards.

Nurses are currently qualifying after 3 years without many of the necessary skills which is why they need a further year preceptorship training.

Whist it is important that nursing students have the academic study, it is equally important that they are able to put this theory into practice on the wards with with all the 'real life' smells and challenges that nursing sick patients brings.

[RutlandFlyer]

As much as I admire the commitment to laying the latest NHS staffing crisis at the feet of immigrants, I'm afraid it's a minor factor at most. The population of the UK is something like 90% indigenous and these problems are far too fundamental to have been caused by such a small minority. You also have to bear in mind how dependent we've become on migrant labour in healthcare.

 

No, we're basically looking at a classic supply and demand problem in British healthcare. On the demand side, the biggest factor of all is our ageing population. More people living a lot longer, suffering more chronic conditions, requiring more care. Secondly, you've got rising obesity rates. This isn't talked about in relation to demand for NHS services quite so much, but obesity leads to type 2 diabetes and people with diabetes require a lot of quite expensive long-term care. Diabetics who don't look after themselves will often end up on blind, on dialysis or unable to walk, which will usually take them out of work and massively reduce their tax contributions.

 

On the other side of the equation, you've then got a reduction in supply, i.e. front-line healthcare professionals. I believe we're training as many new nurses as we ever have, so it isn't a matter of not getting enough into the profession. The problem is keeping them in the profession, keeping them in the public sector and keeping them in the country. This government may not have technically cut NHS spending, but they have allowed budgets to come under intense pressure. That has led hospitals to reduce staffing levels as far as they can, often to borderline dangerous levels, to make ends meet. I know literally dozens of nurses who have either left the NHS or the profession altogether because they couldn't go on working under such unsafe staffing levels. The government have compounded this by making NHS managers the bogeymen and pledging to cut as many of them as they can in the name of "efficiency." The trouble is, those managers have usually been used not only to organise departments efficiently, but also to take admin tasks away from doctors and nurses so they can spend more time treating patients. Those tasks are now trickling back and combined with understaffing in general, make nurses feel very overloaded.

 

You've then got the effect of the government's long, populist assualt on public sector workers. Nursing has always been tough, has always required antisocial hours and adequate rather than generous pay in return, but it has also had job security and reliable pay progression. Both of those things are either gone or going (more and more nurses are employed on fixed term temprorary contracts an end up moving jobs every year or two). Nursing tends to create highly trained and skilled individuals, with a strong work ethic and good organisational and interpersonal skills. In short, they are very employable indeed. I work for a private healthcare research company and many of my colleagues are former nurses who had simply had their fill. Our job is hard, but not as hard as nursing and the pay is substantially better. A lot of nurses are taking that choice, or moving into private clinics with better pay and conditions or leaving secondary care roles for school or community nursing.

 

Worse still, if you've qualified as a nurse in the UK the world really is your oyster - you can literally work anywhere you want and increasing numbers are doing so. They can go to America, earn double what they do here and never make a bed or empty a bedpan again (they have nursing assistants for that). They can go to Australia or Canada where public and government support for healthcare is higher and quality of life is better. They can even go to the UAE for a couple of years and save enough money to come back and buy a house outright, at which point they probably won't want to do anything as stressful as nursing in an NHS ward.

 

If the government want to avert a nursing crises, then the solution is obvious: they can't realistically train many more nurses than they currently are, the big gains would come from stopping nurses leaving the NHS, leaving the profession or leaving the country, or even enticing nurses back again. So really, you have to ask yourself why they aren't taking steps to do that? Why are they pressing on with measures that make the profession less desirable whilst funneling in unfussy migrant workers?

[tzijlstra]

If I could +1 on this forum, the above post would be getting a +1.

[SevenRivers]

The current training is very much University based with less time than in the past for 'hands on' nursing out on the wards.

Nurses are currently qualifying after 3 years without many of the necessary skills which is why they need a further year preceptorship training.

Whist it is important that nursing students have the academic study, it is equally important that they are able to put this theory into practice on the wards with with all the 'real life' smells and challenges that nursing sick patients brings.

 

Thanks Daven I agree completely. To be honest it was a bit of a rhetorical question, I was just trying to tease it out of you so you might answer your own question you asked me when I said we need to train our own "quality nurses". This is the sort of thing I meant, nurses trained to a much better standard with a mix of academic and practical training. Lots of nurses do a good job, but lots of people also have experiences of poor nursing care in hospitals, I witnessed it when my gran was in hospital.