dpedin wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 3:30 pm
fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 2:39 pm
I like neeps wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 2:17 pm
A winter crisis but in summer.
i.e. not a crisis at all, but the new normal, with a gradual slide downwards, as NHS workers get fed up, & emigrate
NHS hitting the obvious and predictable wall with its workforce.
- NHS pay has fallen dramatically in recent years and is well below what it was in real and relative terms 12 years ago once inflation is taken into account.
- Lots of NHS workers stayed on or returned beyond retirement to help out during covid. They are now leaving.
- The baby boom peak of staff is still working its way through the workforce and the nursing and midwifery workforces are worst hit with higher age profiles and retiral rates.
- Brexit put barriers in place for new EU recruitment and existing EU staff faced with increased costs of staying and living in this country plus the 'we don't want you' messaging.
- The pension changes are hitting hard - the NHS implemented the current scheme illegally according to the courts (age discrimination) and have had to do a fix which meant many could take opportunity to retire earlier than planned and worktheir final years via banks and agencies instead of being tied into a 67 retiral age. Also the pension taxation rules restricting both annual and lifetime pension pot accruals, particularly the lifetime allowance being fixed for 5 years, is hitting older higher paid staff, mostly consultants, who are all being advised to reduce working hours to avoid crippling HMRC bills. I have mates who got £25k HMRC bills this year. Any inflation matching pay increase for this cohort will mean huge HMRC bills as pension is based on ave salary and years service.
- Many staff are just knackered and have left due to the sheer toil and unremitting toll of working through covid, many have serious mental health issues as a result.
- NHS staff were disproportionately hit by covid and many died, many of their colleagues have watched this with their own inadequate PPE and support and thought why should they expose themselves to this?
- The UK Gov is not training enough doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives to sustain the current workforce let alone get us to the levels of staffing seen elsewhere in the UK. Why - to save money, don't believe the lack of training capacity nonsense, it could be done.
- Many junior or newly qualified staff leave asap to work abroad to get better pay or working conditions.
I could go on. I know of some hospitals with 25% nursing vacancy rates with no hope of recruitment to fill all the gaps - what does this mean - beds/wards closed and theatres and surgeons sitting idle as there are no theatre staff. All this was entirely predicable before and during the pandemic. It is easy to model and indeed modelling has been done. Why hasn't something been done - cost and, particularly in England, a political determination to run down the NHSand nudge patients into the private sector. However they forget the private sector does no training of doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives so where the feck the private sector is going to get its workforce when he NHS collapses god only knows! It is a shitshow of enormous proportions!