Thousands of newly qualified nurses can’t find jobs as NHS chiefs forced to slash roles

12 comments

1. This is bizarre. I have friends in the medical profession in my area. Two of them quite their NHS jobs because they were being forced to work many extra shifts at short notice when they have young children at home. They signed up for an agency and have so much work that they’re turning it down. And they’re being paid much more.

   Staff shortages (mostly nurses) are also the reason that the backlog at my local hospital has been telling people for months not to show up at the emergency room unless they’re in a life-threatening situation.

2. There are a few reasons for this

   Large overseas recruitment filling roles

   Financial freezes

   The nursing associate role where staff who have half the training are put into roles acting as nurses even though they are not – this is unacceptable and dangerous

3. It’s not shortages. It’s all about money and government spending as usual.

   The UK government cut £5 million of services in the NHS in England last year… and then wonder why everyone in the working population is too sick to work. Nobody has been accessing treatments in time, due to government cuts.

   Let’s hope Labour does something better but I have very low expectations since they have behaved like Tory’s for, how long now?

4. Stop all agency employment right now and only employ directs. Your have your jobs filled.

5. Our trust is continuing to hire nurses from abroad.

6. I’ve literally just finished my degree and although I have been lucky and had a job sorted for months, some of my friends have not. I am in a very undersubscribed field (learning disabilities) which has seen a 45% drop off in numbers in the last 10 years.

   It seems like all the jobs that would have previously been open to newly qualified nurses now appear to be for nursing associates and everything else is band 6 or above which obviously we don’t have the experience for.

7. Very much seeing jobs cut on my ward

   We used to have two admin staff. One retired and now they say they’re not putting it out to advert and we have to make do with one.

   There’s two OT posts. I was the 5 while the 6 was vacant. I’ve just moved up into the 6 position and I’m waiting to be told they won’t allow me a junior OT.

   We’re expected constantly to do more with less resources and it’s exhausting

8. Reminds me of when I did my biomedical sciences degree. After graduation in 2014 I couldn’t secure a trainee position because the trusts couldn’t afford to fund someone to become a registered healthcare professional.

   Couldn’t practice without registration and can’t register without working in the NHS for 6-12 months so it ended up being a waste of 3 years of my life and tuition fees.
   It’s sad to see a new cohort of potential health care professionals go through a similar thing.

   I recently spoke to a local healthcare scientist that was worried about the workforce. Basically a lot of folks brought out of retirement to keep services going but they’ll be too old to work in the next 5 years. Makes little sense really.

9. What happens to the healthcare systems of these other countries that we recruit from? Don’t they need staff, especially those from the developing world?

   Also, are we sure we’re not tricking these individuals into coming here and thinking they’ll earn a higher base since transitioning to a more developed country incurs higher cost of living.

10. We have students on our unit at the moment with no jobs lined up, and they qualify in a few weeks. My hospital seems to only have vacancies in ED. My old trust in the East Midlands is only taking international nurses; 80 are starting in September.

11. There are many medical consultants who provide cover, not just for events, but for the NHS, too. Not hiring those nurses means that the NHS has to hire consultants instead, paying more.

12. This has been known for a good few months now.

    They needed to put a recruitment freeze in place but international recruitment takes a little bit longer so they needed to honour them – meaning it took a lot of the spots which would have been left for NQN.

    They’ve also cut back on agency in my trust, we now have to call the directors to request agency if we can’t fully staff a shift – normally they make us work below safe staffing or leave it right until the last hour to request agency (meaning the agency get paid more too as it’s an emergency request).

    It’s a crap situation for everyone, a lot of the international nurses we are getting in mental health aren’t even trained in mental health; a lot of them are general nurses – so now we are in a position where we are trying to train them up in a area that they aren’t familiar with and a good chunk are on edge about working in this field but have no real option as their visas rely on the job.

    So overall it’s more work for everyone, the nurses are taking on more work whilst also training them and everyone is unhappy. The situation benefits no one.