I bumped into her in the town centre.
‘Jannine! How you doin?’
‘Great, I’m getting married in September and I’ve just got a new job at Marks and Spencer…’
She told me her news, gave me a hug and disappeared into the bustle of the lunchtime.
I knew her mum… a nurse. So was Jannine… but the pressures, the stress, the shifts.
‘David and I never see each and we’d never have enough for a mortgage. Marks have a management training scheme and I’m hoping to get on that…’
Not to over-do the word emergency but I get no sense of urgency about the mission critical problem facing the NHS.
Muddle through and kiss yer lucky rabbit’s foot. We won’t muddle through and ask a three legged rabbit how lucky they are.
Here are some facts;
• More nurses leave than join.
• Last year, +33,000 walked.
• More than 10% of the nursing workforce left the NHS in each of the last three years.
• That’s enough to staff more than 20 average hospitals.
• Since Brexit, more EU staff have left than joined.
I don’t have room for all the numbers. See them here. Just to add: more than half of those leaving were under 40; the rest 40-55.
We are loosing our future and our legacy.
Doctors; a report last September shows us there were 11,576 vacant doctor posts.
All told, there are 100,000 vacancies across the NHS. The fact is, about half of them will be covered by agency or bank.
That tells me three things:
• People are doing overtime to make their money up. That’s not good; they go off shift knackered and come back knackered.
• A chunk of people would rather work for an agency than the NHS. They want a job and life.
• It’s highly likely a slice of the ‘new’ money will be forked out to agencies to make up rota gaps.
The organisation responsible for NHS workforce was Health Education England. Chief executive Ian Cumming saw his pay increase from between a banding of £195,000 to £200,000 in 2016-17 to between £200,000 and £205,000 in 2017-18.
At this point there is nothing I can write that could be read in polite company…
HEE is to be subsumed into NHSi. I trust DiDo will be calling an Uber for Mr C.
We learn the solution to all this is an NHSI committee of committees.
A kamikaze workforce group, four work strands, sub-groups and the major concern… they have enough chairs or a big enough room for them all to meet.
You can imagine; evidence gathering, report writing, consultation, report publication, implementation, funding, changing curricula, consultation, palaver, conferences, visits, cajolery, debate, discussion, babble and chit-chat.
I recon two years, during which time about 66,000 nurses will have walked away. If it’s a year it’s still 33k.
Look, this is urgent. The LTP hasn’t got a prayer without people.
Here’s what you do, Five Gets;
Get the data, ask the NHSI genius Sam Riley to #plotthedots; which Trusts have the smallest churn, the best track record on sickness and retention. Lock all the chief executives in a room and make them share best practice.
Get on a plane, go to the US, see how they do short-course training. Find out about HealthCare Aides and patient care assistants.
Get serious with the professions. Bring back State Enrolled Nurses with a career option to develop into a degree programme if they want to.
Get on a bus to Milton Keynes, ask Jo Harrison how he’s training doctors.
ForGet about training people to do the whole job. Find out how quick you can train them to do the jobs you need done now.
Yes, I know this busts the whole deal wide open. Don’t write to me. The unions will hate it, purists will loath it and the usual suspects will send hate mail. But…
If we are not to turn hosptials into the Brexit equivalent of the lorry park on the M20, we can’t do what we’ve always done.
We can’t wait for the committee of committees to find out where the ginger biscuits are and which way is up.
This is urgent. Today, 90 more nurses will walk away.
Contact Roy – please use this e-address
roy.lilley
Know something I don’t – email me in confidence.
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Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.